Ashley Madison agrees to pay $1.6M in connection with hacking of its network
The Ashley Madison dating website has agreed to pay $1.6 million to resolve allegations by the Federal Trade Commission and more than a dozen states that it failed to protect user data and misled consumers.
The Federal Trade Commission announced the settlement on Wednesday, report the Washington Post, USA Today and the National Law Journal (sub. req.). The allegations stem from a 2015 hack in which stolen data was posted online.
The FTC had alleged the website, which promised privacy to cheating spouses, had inadequate cybersecurity measures and lured people into membership with fake profiles of women.
Half of the settlement will be paid to the FTC and half will be paid to 13 states and District of Columbia. Regulators in Canada and Australia have reached separate settlements with the website.
FTC Chairwoman Edith Ramirez said in a statement that the settlement also requires Ashley Madison to implement more robust data security practices. “This case represents one of the largest data breaches that the FTC has investigated to date, implicating 36 million individuals worldwide,” she said.
