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The homepage of the Ashley Madison website is displayed on an iPad, in this photo illustration taken in Ottawa, Canada July 21, 2015. Canada's prim capital is suddenly focused more on the state of people's affairs than the affairs of the state. One in five Ottawa residents allegedly subscribed to adulterers' website Ashley Madison, making one of the world's coldest capitals among the hottest for extra-marital hookups - and the most vulnerable to a breach of privacy after hackers targeted the site. REUTERS/Chris Wattie

The Ashley Madison hack may have left more than a million people in the UK vulnerable to blackmailing. The online dating website, which encourages married people to cheat on their partners, was part of a major cyber-attack.

The Canadian website, which comes with a tagline: “life is short, have an affair,” may face multiple lawsuits from 37.5 million users. The Toronto-based site was hacked by “The Impact Team” on July 15. The hacking group stole sensitive internal data from Avid Life Media, the owning company of the website.

The hacking team has threatened to release credit card details, email addresses and nude photos of the customers cheating on their partners. The theft of such sensitive data would make customers highly susceptible to blackmailing.

Senior Analyst Ken Westin at cybersecurity company Tripwire said that the information could be used for blackmail. “Information associated with adult services has the potential to ruin lives, be used for blackmail or even espionage purposes if government officials are involved,” The Telegraph quoted him.

Will Gragido from Digital Shadows said that the Ashley Madison hack appeared to be “extortion-focused.” The head of threat intelligence research said that the hackers were possibly holding as much data as they could for ransom. He added that there was hardly any Ashley Madison data in circulation at the moment.

The British victims, around 1.2 million in number, may sue Avid Life Media on the grounds of breach of privacy. Ashley Madison said in its latest statement that it gave “utmost” priority to its customers’ privacy. It also offered to delete all the details of any member who was willing to do so.

Carole Malone from The Mirror wrote that she did not have any sympathy for the 1.2 million British people who had cheated on their partners. She said that it would help their partners realize that how pathetic they had been.

The release of stolen personal data will also enable their husbands or wives to have enough evidence to sue their partners who had paid an annual subscription fee to cheat on their partners, she said. She added that there was no way to justify encouraging people to betray their partners.

Contact the writer: s.mukhopadhyay@ibtimes.com.au

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