Ashley Madison Data Breach

What happened?

In July 2015, the infidelity website Ashley Madison suffered a serious data breach . The attackers threatened Ashley Madison with the full disclosure of the breach unless the service was shut down. One month later, the database was dumped including more than 30M unique email addresses. This breach has been classed as "sensitive" and is not publicly searchable, although individuals may discover if they've been impacted by registering for notifications . Read about this approach in detail .

When did it happen?

The breach date in the public record is July 19, 2015. The record was added to the catalogue on August 18, 2015 and last updated there on August 18, 2015.

What information was reported as exposed?

• Dates of birth
• Email addresses
• Ethnicities
• Genders
• Names
• Passwords
• Payment histories
• Phone numbers
• Physical addresses
• Security questions and answers
• Sexual orientations
• Usernames
• Website activity

These are incident-level categories. The record does not prove that every category was exposed for every affected person.

Who may be affected?

This record may be relevant to people who had an account or other relationship with Ashley Madison or used ashleymadison.com around July 19, 2015. A catalogue entry does not establish that every customer was affected or that every listed data category applied to each person. Compare the record with an official notice addressed to you.

What should you do?

Choose actions that match the information involved. If you find signs that someone is using your identity, the Federal Trade Commission provides a personal recovery plan at IdentityTheft.gov.