Not So Secret, After All: Ashley Madison Hack Reminds Users That There's No Such Thing As Privacy Online Ashley Madison, the now-beleaguered online dating portal for people already in committed relationships, has now become the world's most famous un-kept secret.
By Tamara Clarke Edited by Aby Sam Thomas
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Ashley Madison, the now-beleaguered online dating portal for people already in committed relationships, has now become the world's most famous un-kept secret. The site, whose tagline is "Life's short, have an affair," was recently hacked, exposing private data belonging to millions of its users. The news reports of the size of the hack vary from 30 million users to 37 million users, and at the time of writing, class-action lawsuits against the parent company behind AshleyMadison.com had also been filed. The hack has been attributed to competitors, "the morality police," and there's even speculation of an internal leak. Regardless of how it happened, Internet users should beware: whether you're shopping online for a used car or a tryst with someone else's spouse, your digital footprint is not private and never truly safe.