Toronto Police: Multiple Suicides and Extortion Attempts Possibly Linked to Ashley Madison Hack

According to investigators in Toronto, the two suicides were possibly in response to the massive data breach carried out by the Impact Team.

During a press conference on Monday, Toronto police revealed that the recent data breach currently keeping Ashley Madison in the headlines has possibly spawned multiple extortion attempts and several suicides. With Ashley Madison's parent company currently offering a $500,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of members of the hacking group The Impact Team, local officials are now calling the attack "one of the largest data breaches in the world," adding that a continued "social and economic fallout" should be expected.

"This is affecting all of us," says Bryce Evans of the Toronto Police. "The social impact behind this leak, we're talking about families, we're talking about children, we're talking about wives, their male partners." Evans and his team consider the hack a global problem, promising to bring in "top security investigators from around the world to assist" in the investigation. In addition to the two suicides believed to be caused by the data breach and the confirmed extortion incidents, Evans also suggests that the breach inspired multiple hate crimes, according to the Associated Press.

The release of Ashley Madison's client list ultimately impacted more than 30 million previously private users, exposing their names, email addresses, and excerpted credit card information. Avid Life Media, the company which owns Ashley Madison, was accused by The Impact Team of "deceit and incompetence" stemming from their site's privacy policy.

 

Latest in Pop Culture