TECH CRUNCH – Aug 31 – That’s hard to believe, given that the leaked emails also revealed the company paid people to create fake profiles. In addition, Avid Life Media states that Ashley Madison's user base is growing, following the hack. Hundreds of thousands of new users signed up in the past week, including 87K women, the company says.
by Sarah Perez
See full article at Tech Crunch
GIZMODO – Aug 27 – According to Ashley Madison's internal emails, the company was actively paying people to create fake profiles. The company even had a shorthand for these fake profiles—"angels." On June 27, 2013, in an email thread with the subject line "how angels are made," Noel Biderman scolded some of his employees for failing to create a decent automated process for making angels. Is it possible that Biderman built a site hoping to attract women, but failed miserably, then tried to hide that fact by creating all those fake profiles? All the ads are aimed at men and it is not that easy to create an account on Ashley Madison if you're a woman.
by Annalee Newitz
See full article at Gizmondo
REUTERS – Aug 28 - Ashley Madison has been struggling to sell itself or raise funds for at least three years before the hack, according to internal documents and emails also released by hackers. CEO Noel Biderman was trying to secure a meeting with IAC. "They would be crazy not to speak with us," wrote Biderman in February this year. But one IAC director replied: "They don't want it." The emails also show that Avid Life came close to selling itself at least three times in 2012.
TECH CRUNCH – Aug 28 – Avid Life Media CEO Noel Biderman is stepping down. The company describes Biderman’s departure as a “mutual agreement". The company will be led by senior management until a new CEO can be found.
by Sarah Perez
See full article at Tech Crunch
FINANCIAL POST – Aug 28 – In April, Ashley Madison's head of international relations Christoph Kraemer estimated the company's value at $1B, pegging the ratio of men to women in the 30-45 age range at ~50-50. But a data analysis by the Gawker affiliate Gizmodo revealed there were only 5.5M female profiles and only ~12K of them displayed evidence of being connected to actual women who used the site. 10K accounts were registered to ashleymadison.com email addresses, while ~81K appear to have been created on an Ashley Madison computer, based on their IP addresses. If those allegations are true that's likely the last nail in the coffin for the site, said dating company consultant Mark Brooks. "I think people would have forgiven (the security breach). I think they would have gotten over that, as long as they put safeguards in place so it doesn’t happen again," Brooks said. "This, they don't move on from. This means this brand is not trustworthy. That’s a big deal."
by Claire Brownell
See full article at Financial Post
Mark Brooks: Alexa tells us that the female population is greatly under-represented and their confidence on this stat is 'high.'
WSJ – Aug 27 – The Royal Canadian Mounted Police and the Federal Bureau of Investigation are investigating the hack of Ashley Madison. Security blogger Brian Krebs thinks he has a clue. A self-described hacker who calls himself Thadeus Zu on Twitter appears to have had intimate knowledge of the hack, has defended the hackers and appears to be a fan of the AC/DC song, "Thunderstruck," which played a key role in the breach. "It's not uncommon for people involved in hacks to have trouble keeping their mouths shut," said Mr. Krebs.
by Danny Yadron
See full article at WSJ
BUSINESS INSIDER – Aug 27 – This month, hackers of AshleyMadison.com began to leak internal company data online, which also includes sensitive documents and the emails of CEO Noel Biderman. Included within Biderman's email correspondence is a "Management Presentation" for Grindr, created in June 2015. Accoring to the presentation, Grindr is expected to generate $38.1M this year. By the end of 2018, it predicts annual revenues ~$77M. Grindr claims that the average daily time its users spend on the app is 54 minutes daily, compared to Facebook's 42.1 minutes.
by Rob Price
See full article at Business Insider
WASHINGTON TIMES – Aug 25 – In U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas, attorneys say in a 27-page complaint that Avid failed its obligations to abide by best practices and industry standards concerning digital security. In the Central District of California, attorneys filed a similar suit and asked the court to grant class-action status so other members impacted by the "nightmare" brought on by hackers can see relief. Avid Life Media has until Sept. 14 to answer accusations that it failed to safeguard sensitive user data that was dumped online last week. Two Canadian firms said last week that they were bringing a class-action suit against Avid seeking upwards of $760M in damages. Even if Avid agreed to award $100 each to half of Ashley Madison's roughly 37M customers, the company would still stand to lose nearly $2B. Avid earned around $115M in revenue during 2014, according to court filings.
by Andrew Blake
See full article at The Washington Times
WIRED – Aug 24 – For companies like Ashley Madison or health insurer Anthem, financial loss, customer anger and professional embarrassment aren't the only consequences of getting massively gutted by hackers. A U.S. appellate court ruled that the FTC has the authority to sue Wyndham Hotels for allowing hackers to steal more than 600K customers' data from its computer systems in 2008 and 2009, leading to more than $10 million in fraudulent charges. The ruling more widely cements the agency's power to regulate and fine firms that lose consumer data to hackers, if the companies engaged in what the FTC deems "unfair" or "deceptive" business practices.
WIRED – Aug 24 – According to an email exchange in November 2012, Ashley Madison's one-time CTO told colleagues, including the CEO of parent company Avid Life Media, that he had found a security hole in the web site of Nerve.com and used it to exfiltrate the competitor's entire database. He also indicated that he had the ability to alter records in the database. If Bhatia did in fact hack Nerve.com, he could be criminally charged with unauthorized access under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.
by Kim Zetter
See full article at Wired