The Ashley Madison Breach

hack-813290_1280I felt it was important to discuss the current situation going on with the Ashley Madison website customer data exposure. You may have some friends that could be effected by the “data dump” of these so called “morals and principle” hackers. One of my friends who helped me setup our website Paul Maddalena runs a highly renowned and successful Digital Marketing Agency. He helped me better understand web security as my knowledge on the subject is limited.

Ultimately if a hacker really wants to cause some service interruption on your website there is a good chance they will find a way to do that. The key is not to become a target for hackers in the first place, but if it happens there are steps you can take to better protect yourself and your clients information.

Ashley Madison has had a tough couple of days since their site got hacked and all of their “cheating customer” data was dumped out to the public. Keep in mind this is totally coming from one persons point of view. I am seeing first hand how families, relationships, and bonds will ultimately be destroyed. If these “hackers” thought they were saving the day, think again they may have started more of an issue than they originally thought.

Click here to see if you have been compromised, hopefully you have not.

When this story first broke I had a feeling it could go either way, good or bad! In my opinion it’s going bad! As I am typing up this blog a co-worker of mine is searching through the free database to see if anyone she knows has been compromised, and what do you know, she pulls up her brothers email address! Now does this mean he is fully engaged or just surfing? These are the questions people need to ask themselves.

The sad thing is most of these folks are small business owners and Military personal, now they may have been exposed for trying to have one night of fun. If you look up the list of folks they range from Limousine owners and well respected catering companies in different cities and towns and surprisingly Military Employees. Reputations may be tarnished forever because a group of people thought it was immoral to go on a site and pay a company to help you cheat on your spouse. I have some advice for the “Hackers”, mind your damn business!

I honestly think more damage will be done in the next coming days.

Back to my co-worker, I discussed it more with her and a few others we advised her not to tell her brother about her discovery just yet. We felt it would destroy more than just his marriage but she had to think about her niece and nephew. This thing could be bigger than just an email address she dug up. These guys whomever they are, did it for more than just morals and principles, there has to be something more behind this crazy exposure of customer data.

If they were so smart they would understand that willing “cheating customers” offered up all there info to engage on a website that provided a unique service.

Now ask yourself this question, what is the difference between Ashley Madison and going to the strip club and leaving with the stripper? Please tell me! There is no difference.

The power of the Internet has put everybody in a tough position there is no privacy. We live online and we are not logging off bottom line.

I want to talk to the consumer for a sec, once you submit your info anywhere online its no longer yours. When you submit it online and provide it for a service you basically give the business owner permission to kind of do his or her thing with it, but most of the time they don’t. These “HACKERS” used customer info the wrong way and may have potentially destroyed a business and most importantly families.

This story is going to continue and I am sure more data will be dumped. I will keep you posted on how this is affecting people, businesses, families and our online privacy as a whole.

Ashley Madison may have to reconsider their online security strategy, at least for the customer sake.

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