Divorce lawyers expect surge in clients after hackers dump data from Ashley Madison dating site
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A hack attack on an Internet dating site that bills itself as “the most famous name in infidelity and married dating” has been followed by an apparent data dump of some 9.7 gigabytes of confidential information stolen from the “discreet” Ashley Madison site.
Made available Tuesday to those willing to use the Tor browser to access the so-called dark web, the material includes names; street and email addresses; and payment details for millions of transactions dating back to 2007, reports Wired. However, there is some comfort for those concerned about their financial information being hacked—the data dump includes only partial credit-card numbers.
Already, there has been an upsurge of business for divorce lawyers, which one practitioner describes as “the tsunami,” reports the Huffington Post.
While not all calls will lead to divorces, “There’s definitely going to be a lot of people calling me in and wanting to quote-unquote know their rights,” said Jacqueline Newman to the Post. Newman is managing partner of the Berkman Bottger Newman & Rodd matrimonial boutique in New York City. She also predicted brisk business for therapists.
Avid Life Media, which owns the Ashley Madison site, said in a written statement Tuesday that it is cooperating with the FBI and Canadian authorities in an effort to identify those responsible for the hack attack and data dump.
“This event is not an act of hacktivism, it is an act of criminality. It is an illegal action against the individual members of AshleyMadison.com, as well as any freethinking people who choose to engage in fully lawful online activities,” the company wrote. “The criminal, or criminals, involved in this act have appointed themselves as the moral judge, juror, and executioner, seeing fit to impose a personal notion of virtue on all of society. We will not sit idly by and allow these thieves to force their personal ideology on citizens around the world.”
See also:
ABAJournal.com: “Lawyer-Run Business Helps Attorneys and Others Arrange Discreet Affairs”
ABAJournal.com: “Jilted husband blames attorney-owned website in alienation-of-affection suit”
