You may recall around 5 years ago hearing that the Ashley Madison website was hacked. In it, thousands of its user’s personal information were obtained by a still unknown party.
Now, for those of you (genuinely) not aware of this company, it was essentially a dating service for married people. As such, you can see why a hack on such a site would’ve had a lot of people sweating nervously.
Well, shortly following the hack, a number of people were contacted. In it, they were basically threatened that their activities would be exposed unless they paid money. In other words, it was blackmail. Well, in a report via Arstechnica, it seems that the scam has begun rearing its head again!
Ashley Madison Hack Blackmailing Returns!
In the report, a number of e-mails have been revealed showing that in recent weeks, people have been contacted in what is basically a revisit of the original blackmail scam. The contents of the e-mails are pretty straight forward, ‘pay us money, or we’re e-mailing everyone you know about what you did!’.
Containing a PDF document, it reportedly contains a lot of private information about the individual (to confirm the legitimacy of the threat) as well as a Bitcoin account in which the money can be paid. A figure that is reportedly in the region of $900.
What Do We Think?
While you can question the ethics of people wanting to cheat on their partners, this is clearly one of the more malicious scams out there. Yes, I daresay some of you think that they may deserve it, but, let’s face it, a lot of people being targeted by this will likely pay the money with, I might add, no guarantee that the scammers may not attempt to extort them again in the future. Remember as well, it’s likely that a lot of Ashley Madison members never actually did anything beyond just signing-up. They would, however, still pay simply to cover up the fact that they joined in the first place!
So, if you get this email (and you were legitimately a member), my best advice is to come clean. Covering this up will likely do you no good in the long term in terms of both mentally and financially!
What do you think? – Let us know in the comments!
