Cheaters Strike Back:

Lawyers in Conference Room

Back in July, many users had their personal information breached and exposed in a recent company hack that hit Ashley Madison hard- affecting over 39 million users. On August 16^th, a group of anonymous hackers posted all of the data from the website’s database on the web, including sensitive information such as:

• Names
• Email addresses
• Partner preferences
• How often the user visited the website

On August 20^th, two Canadian law firms: Charney Lawyers and Sutts, as well as Strosberg LLP, filed a $578 million class-action lawsuit against companies running extramarital-affairs website, Ashley Madison. Toronto-based Avid Life Media and Avid Dating Life, who run the company, are named in the suit.

Also in the lawsuit, it is said that they will not seek damages from the hackers responsible for leaking the information. In many cases, users paid good money to have their personal information removed from the website’s databases – only to find out it still existed, and was exposed.

To fight on behalf of Canadians, the suit also joined a $5 million class-action lawsuit filed in Missouri back in July. The plaintiff in that specific case claimed that she had paid $19 to Ashley Madison for them to run a “paid-delete” of her (very) personal information, which they failed to do.

The firms said in a statement, “Numerous former users of AshleyMadison.com have approached the law firms to inquire about their privacy rights under Canadian law. They are outraged that AshleyMadison.com failed to protect its users’ information.” Not only are the customers mad, but partners of those users are angry too – and Ashley Madison lies right in the middle of the outrage.

Contact Raleigh IT Support Company and IT Services Provider | CSP Inc. at (919) 424-2000 or send us an email at info@cspinc.com for more information on the latest hacks.