When the cheating website Ashley Madison was hacked in July by Impact Team, millions of users' personal information was stolen and then leaked. After over 25 gigabytes of data was posted online, opportunistic blackmailers sent emails making a demand for money and holding the victims' uploaded information at ransom. A new study shows that the cybercriminals could be receiving virtual Bitcoin payments.
The personal information made public included emails of corporate personnel of Avid Life, the parent company of Ashley Madison. If the website's employees and users failed to give in to the demands, the blackmailers claimed they would send the victims' profile data to relatives and coworkers. Coin Desk reported the news about the blackmail emails related to the cheating website.
The Cloudmark security firm recently studied the blackmail cases linked to the cheaters website. It published the findings of research analyst Toshiro Nishimura in a blog post on September 1, Tuesday, according to The Market Business.
The security company analyzed financial transactions during the period the blackmailing was happening. It focused on online transactions with a constant size of 1.05 Bitcoins (BTC) ($250 USD) from Internet wallets that had a history of few or no transactions in the past, according to The Legacy.
Cloudmark discovered 67 questionable transactions, which totaled 70.35 BTC or about $15,800 USD. The figure could be a fraction of the total amount of Ashley Madison-related ransom money paid out as it only tracked regular transactions over a 4-day period.
Nishimura noted that the blackmailers had a few key benefits. They included the free cost of Ashley Madison data, and the low cost of resources such as email accounts and Bitcoin addresses.
This video gives details about the Ashley Madison leak: