With the recent hack of Ashley Madison, the world’s most famous dating website for cheating spouses, personal information of over 37 million users, including those in Hong Kong, mainland China and Taiwan, have been compromised.
The hackers have already released personal information of several of the website's users, along with bank account numbers and salaries of company employees, Hong Kong's Oriental Daily reported earlier this week.
According to Web security firm Krebson Security, a team of hackers called "The Impact Team" had infiltrated the databases of Canadian-based Avid Life Media (ALM) and accessed user data, including credit card information and emails, from the company's subsidiaries Ashley Madison and Established Men, a website aimed at connecting young attractive women with wealthy older men.
ALM also owns another dating site called Cougar Life, which is meant to connect young handsome men with wealthy older women.
The hackers posted a threat online, demanding that both Ashley Madison and Established Men be shut down or they will reveal the personal information of the websites' users, including photographs, the content of their online chat logs, and records of credit card transactions.
The hackers said that the majority of the websites' users are from North America, although reports suggest that there are also a significant number of users in 51 other countries, including Taiwan, China and Hong Kong.
A reporter from Taiwan's Apple Daily attempted to contact Ashley Madison's Taiwan customer service team, but the line was disconnected. Media reports also estimate the number of users in Hong Kong in the tens of thousands.
In response, ALM posted on Ashley Madison on Tuesday, stating:
"At this time, we have been able to secure our sites, and close the unauthorized access points. We are working with law enforcement agencies, which are investigating this criminal act. Any and all parties responsible for this act of cyber-terrorism will be held responsible. Using the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), our team has now successfully removed the posts related to this incident as well as all Personally Identifiable Information (PII) about our users published online."
Ashley Madison, which markets itself with the catchphrase "Life is short, have an affair," stated that the "paid-delete" feature on their website does effectively remove all user information from their records, including photographs, credit card transactions, and chat logs, despite media reports to the contrary.
As of press time, both websites are functioning normally and users from Taiwan, China and Hong Kong are still easily searchable.