Extramarital affair website Ashley Madison, that has been at the centre of a large hack and distribution of users personals details, is offering a reward of $500,000 (Canadian dollars) for information about the hackers.
Avid Life Media (ALM), the parent company of Ashley Madison, held a press conference in Canada yesterday to update the media on the current investigation, led by the Toronto Police Services (TPS).
“Avid Life Media Inc. is grateful to the international law enforcement coalition for the update it provided this morning,” the press statement from the company said this morning. “We are confident that the considerable investigative and prosecutorial power that is being brought to bear on this unprecedented crime will lead to arrests and convictions.”
While ALM said the investigation was heading in a “positive direction”, it still needed help from outside.
“As such, and as announced at today’s press conference, Avid Life Media Inc. is offering a $500,000 CDN reward payment to anyone who provides information to the Task Force that leads to the identification, arrest, and conviction of the person or persons responsible for the theft of proprietary data.”
A special Twitter account has been set up for the Ashley Madison hack, @AMCaseTPS.
Ashley Madison was threatened by a group calling themselves The Impact Team in late July this year, saying unless ALM took down the Ashley Madison site and its sister site Established Men, the group would release user details online.
At the time, ALM released a statement saying it had “stringent security measures in place”.
However, last week saw the hackers allegedly follow through with their threat, releasing what was being reported as nearly 10GB of data.
The fall out from the Ashley Madison hack has been swift, with ALM labelling the hack an “act of criminality”.
“This event is not an act of hacktivism, it is an act of criminality,” ALM said in a statement at the time. “It is an illegal action against the individual members of AshleyMadison.com, as well as any freethinking people who choose to engage in fully lawful online activities.”