Ashley Madison owner confirms some leaked data is authentic

A spokesman said the ‘vast majority’ of the data are unrelated to the site, but Avid Life Media is reportedly sending notices to get reports containing the information taken down.

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About a month ago, hackers threatened to expose the information of more than 30 million users of the Ashley Madison, a website whose purpose is to help married folks find someone with whom to have an affair. This week, the hackers followed through on the threat with what the site has confirmed is at least partially real (and sizeable at 9.7 gigabytes) data dump.

The hackers initially demanded that parent company Avid Life shut down Ashley Madison and another site, Established Men, whose purpose is to hook up old dudes with the women who presumably seek them.

“There has been a substantial amount of postings since the initial posting, the vast majority of which have contained data unrelated to AshleyMadison.com but there has also been some data released that is legitimate,” Avid Life spokesman Paul Keable told The Huffington Post.

He added, “Furthermore, we can confirm that we do not—nor ever have—store credit card information on our servers.”

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