UPDATE 2-Two people may have committed suicide after Ashley Madison hack-police

(Adds timeline of hack, police statement to hackers)
By Alastair Sharp
TORONTO, Aug 24 (Reuters) - At least two people may have
committed suicide following the hacking of the Ashley Madison
cheating website, Toronto police said on Monday, warning of a
ripple effect that includes scams and extortion of clients
desperate to stop the exposure of their infidelity.
Avid Life Media Inc, the parent company of the website, is
offering a C$500,000 ($379,132) reward to catch the hackers.
In addition to the exposure of the Ashley Madison accounts
of as many as 37 million users, the attack on the dating website
for married people has sparked extortion attempts and at least
two unconfirmed suicides, Toronto Police Acting Staff
Superintendent Bryce Evans told a news conference.
The data dump contained email addresses of U.S. government
officials, UK civil servants, and workers at European and North
American corporations, taking already deep-seated fears about
Internet security and data protection to a new level.

"Your actions are illegal and will not be tolerated. This is
your wake-up call," Evans said, addressing the so-called "Impact
Team" hackers directly during the news conference.
"To the hacking community who engage in discussions on the
dark web and who no doubt have information that could assist
this investigation, we're also appealing to you to do the right
thing," Evans said. "You know the Impact Team has crossed the
line. Do the right thing and reach out to us."
Police declined to provide any more details on the apparent
suicides, saying they received unconfirmed reports on Monday
morning.
"The social impact behind this (hacking) - we're talking
about families. We're talking about their children, we're
talking about their wives, we're talking about their male
partners," Evans told reporters.
"It's going to have impacts on their lives. We're now going
to have hate crimes that are a result of this. There are so many
things that are happening. The reality is ... this is not the
fun and games that has been portrayed."
The investigation into the hacking has broadened to include
international law enforcement, with the U.S. Department of
Homeland Security joining last week. The U.S. Federal Bureau of
Investigation and Canadian federal and provincial police are
also assisting.
Evans also said the hacking has spawned online scams that
fraudulently claim to be able to protect Ashley Madison clients'
data for a fee.
People are also attempting to extort Ashley Madison clients
by threatening to send evidence of their membership directly to
friends, family or colleagues, Evans said.
In a sign of Ashley Madison's deepening woes following the
breach, lawyers last week launched a class-action lawsuit
seeking some $760 million in damages on behalf of Canadians
whose information was leaked.
Evans said Avid Life first became aware of the breach on
July 12, when several employees booted up their computers and
received a message from the infiltrators accompanied by the
playing of rock group AC/DC's "Thunderstruck."
The company went to police several days later, he said,
while the hackers went public on July 20.
($1 = 1.3188 Canadian dollars)