By Scott Buttram
TRUSSVILLE –Last year, ashleymadison.com, a website to help married people cheat on their spouses, said Trussville represented the largest number of people in the metro Birmingham area who had signed up for their services. Some of those people may be a little nervous today.
According to Avid Life Media, the parent company of the website, ashleymadison.com has been hacked and the personal information of some users has been posted online.
In a press release on Monday, Avid Life Media acknowledged the security breech and said they had closed the access points that allowed the hackers to retrieve the personal data of members.
“We have always had the confidentiality of our customers’ information foremost in our minds, and have had stringent security measures in place, including working with leading IT vendors from around the world.” the company said is a statement. “As other companies have experienced, these security measures have unfortunately not prevented this attack to our system.”
Later Monday, the company updated the press release, stating that personal information that had been posted online had been removed.
“Using the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), our team has now successfully removed the posts related to this incident as well as all Personally Identifiable Information (PII) about our users published online,” the release stated. “We have always had the confidentiality of our customers’ information foremost in our minds and are pleased that the provisions included in the DMCA have been effective in addressing this matter.”
AshleyMadison.com, a website for married cheaters, has been hacked.
Photo from ashleymadison.com website
An new update released at 12:25 p.m. stated that a “paid-delete” option offered by the website would remove all personal information from their severs.
“Contrary to current media reports, and based on accusations posted online by a cyber criminal, the “paid-delete” option offered by AshleyMadison.com does in fact remove all information related to a member’s profile and communications activity,” Avid Life Media said. “The process involves a hard-delete of a requesting user’s profile, including the removal of posted pictures and all messages sent to other system users’ email boxes. This option was developed due to specific member requests for just such a service, and designed based on their feedback.”
In 2014, officials at the website said Trussville accounted for about 9 percent or 3,240 of their 36,000 metro Birmingham users. Trussville was followed by Redmont Park, Forest Park, Avondale, Grayson Valley, Fairfield, Mountain Brook, Vestavia, Ensley, and Irondale.
