Personal data including intimate sexual predilections for nearly 4 million users of popular dating and casual hook-up app have reportedly been exposed after the site was hacked Friday.
According to a UK’s Channel 4 News report, California-based Adult Friend Finder’s user email, birth dates, sexual preferences including the desire for extramarital affairs and sexual orientation from active and deleted profiles were posted in more than a dozen spreadsheets on the Darknet. Affected users were predominantly male — 16:1 — with some identified as government or military personnel.
The hacker’s identity hasn’t been verified, but the breach seems to be linked to a security researcher’s blog post outlining the hacker’s ransom demands for a total of $348,000 from the adult site and law enforcement in exchange for the data, Ars Technica reported.
Adult Friend Finder, which boasts nearly 64 million users, hasn’t yet commented on news of the breach but said it is aware of the situation and will “take the appropriate steps needed to protect our customers if they are affected.”
The dating site hack follows another major breach that exposed customers’ personal data of more than a million customers. BlueCross Blue Shield’s CareFirst was hacked earlier this week, revealing 1.1 million patients’ names, emails, birth dates, and insurance identification numbers.
Consumer related cyberattacks are becoming a regular occurrence. Forty-three percent of companies reported data breaches last year and one in seven people have had their information leaked as a result. Another 25 percent end up getting their identity stolen.