(Updating to add details about the data release in paragraphs
4-6, 10)
NEW YORK, Aug 21 (Reuters) - Hackers who stole a trove of
sensitive data from AshleyMadison.com said "nobody was watching"
as they scoured the infidelity website and vowed to release
more emails from its executives, online technology website
Motherboard reported on Friday.
The tech website said it was given a contact email address
for the hackers, who call themselves the Impact Team, by an
intermediary. The hackers replied with a message signed with the
same signature and fingerprint, known as a PGP key, posted with
the Ashley Madison data releases this week, Motherboard said.
"We were in Avid Life Media a long time to understand and
get everything," the website quoted the hackers as saying.
"Nobody was watching. No security."
David Kennedy, founder and security consultant at
TrustedSec, said that the latest download, which was released
with the warning "Time's Up!", appears to be authentic.
"We have explained the fraud, deceit and stupidity of ALM
[Ashley Madison's parent company Avid Life Media] and their
members. Now everyone gets to see their data," the hackers said
in a statement.
Impact Team had threatened to publish names and nude photos
and sexual fantasies of customers unless Ashley Madison and
Established Men, another site owned by Avid Life Media were
taken down.
Representatives of Avid Life Media could not immediately be
reached for comment.
Cyber security experts said data dumps on Tuesday and
Thursday by the group appeared to be genuine. Tuesday's release
had customer information that included U.S. government
officials, British civil servants and high-level executives at
European and North America corporations.
Motherboard reported that in its exchange with the hackers,
they said they had 300 gigabytes of employee emails and internal
documents, "tens of thousands of Ashley Madison users pictures"
and user chat messages from the site. On Tuesday, hackers
released 10 gigabytes of data.
Cyber security experts have said they expect more staged
releases of sensitive information.