Ashley Madison Hack: When Links To Alleged Download Lists Of 25,000 Leaked Username Data Are Clicked, Here’s What Happens


The journalists hot on the trail to determine if any real leaked data from confirmed Ashley Madison users have leaked online are now reporting their experiences. With the proliferation of websites promising they have long lists of nearly 100,000 Ashley Madison users and their hacked downloaded data, writers are performing their due diligence to determine if these claims are fake or real. As reported by the BBC, much of the proposed Ashley Madison lists of leaked user data turns out to be spam links.

The BBC discovered that visits to many of the download links on sites like Pasetbin, Slexy, or other sites known to share such data are fake. Posts with tempting titles such as “Ashley Madison hacked account 100,000” or “Ashley Madison hacked 25,000 accounts” or “1.2 million Ashley Madison recently hacked passwords and usernames!” or “Unbelievable Ashley Madison Hacked Ids Revealed” contain links to email addresses and passwords that have circulated online since 2011 — and aren’t believed to be real Ashley Madison data from the recent hack.

Even technical sounding jargon titles such as “[SQL] Ashley Madison Database Dump,” promising to be a TXT file from the Blackhat Forum turns up the type of links that benefit the cyber scammers. As reported by the Inquisitr, links to supposed “Ashley Madison Hacked Accounts Email List” of nearly 100,000 folks led clickers to surveys that promised the data after completing a survey. Instead, those surveys only resulted in insurance quote requests that served as a lead for companies like Allstate Insurance. As is known in the online world, affiliate marketers get paid a varying amount of money for leads of would-be customers, therefore scammers seeking to make money by forwarding false leads are using the Ashley Madison scandal to try and increase their referral marketing income.

These scams associated with the download links of hacked data are filling the space provided after the Impact Team initially leaked the names of two users and then fell relatively quiet since the hacking news dominated headlines on July 20. Also quiet since the last statement about the hacking are the Ashley Madison Twitter account, the media.ashleymadison.com page, Noel Biderman’s Twitter page, and Ashley Madison’s Facebook page.

Without any new updates from Avid Media to calm the nerves and quell the fears of those who don’t want any real leaked Ashley Madison data to turn their lives upside-down, spammers are filling the void with download links promising hacked data lists.

[Image via Ashley Madison]

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