Adultery website Ashley Madison was hacked last month and now the hackers have published all the details including names, addresses, phone numbers, encrypted passwords and credit card transaction details of around 32 million of its 37 million registered customers.

Avid Life Media (ALM), the parent company, was given a month to take down Ashley Madison and dating website Established Men. If the company did not do so, they threatened to make public user details taken from the company's compromised databases, source code repositories, financial records and email system.

A notice from the hackers said “time's up” and accused ALM of lying to its customers.

ALM made a statement that described the hack as "an act of criminality."

"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," the statement said. "We will not sit idly by and allow these thieves to force their personal ideology on citizens around the world."

A security company investigating the breach, Blue Coat, said it believes there is more to come, including reselling the personal data to others, financial or non-financial blackmail of Ashley Madison and its customers, and social engineering to take down bigger targets.

George Anderson, director at cybersecurity firm Webroot, said: “There is a desire to hurt people here and that's sick as well as being criminal. Whilst readers' morals may conflict, either seeing this group of hackers as good or bad guys, the fact remains that the Impact Team illegally obtained sensitive personal info. I'd imagine the fall-out is divorces, firings and blackmail – really personally malicious and upsetting stuff. There are no moral judgments on this except the immorality of hackers. So the ‘what now?' is pretty nasty and the site users will probably be considering a class action for negligence."

Source: SCMagazine