Want to know if you’re in the Ashley Madison leak?
Itching to find out if you’re part of the Ashley Madison leak?
Just hours after hackers dumped the profiles of nearly 37 million people who registered for the extramarital dating site, multiple websites popped up to help people figure out if their data had been compromised.
One site, CheckAshleyMadison.com, lets people check to see if their email or phone number are included in the leaked database.
It’s become an instant hit.
“Due to overwhelming traffic, please give up to 10-15 seconds for the ‘Status’ field to update! Thank you!” the website says cheerily.
{mosads}There’s even a “contact us” email for anyone who has follow-up questions.
A Chicago software developer replied to the email, telling The Hill he and a partner bought the domain Tuesday night after finding out about the dump. The developer said he runs an automation consulting company that works with financial services firms.
The site had piled up more than 24,000 unique users and 33,000 total visits by early afternoon Wednesday.
Another site came from a programmer who developed a similar site after software maker Adobe lost over 100 million users’ information in late 2013.
The page lets users search for their email in the mammoth 10 gigabyte data dump, much larger than security researchers were anticipating.
“How do I know this checker site is legit?” the site asks. “You don’t, but I’m the same person who made the Adobe leaked password checker if that lends me any credibility.”
Thousands of people in Washington, D.C., may be rushing to the sites today after an initial scan revealed over 15,000 email addresses potentially hosted on government and military servers.
Emails purportedly from a wide range of federal agencies — from the State Department to the Department of Veterans Affairs to NASA to the Department of Homeland Security — were peppered throughout the database.
Accounts that could be tied to House and Senate email addresses were also in the leak.
However, many security researchers have cautioned that Ashley Madison did not validate email addresses. Indeed, many of the alleged government emails are obviously fake.
But for those people who actually had their information compromised, the consequences could be significant.
In addition to the potential embarrassment, digital scammers could profit off of the detailed profiles, which include full names, addresses, partial credit card information and physical details such as height and weight.
— Updated 3:44 p.m.
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