As the world has learned time and time again, the Internet is scary as hell. It seems when you’re not finding photos of yourself on sex sites, dealing with the fact that your marriage is over because of Facebook, you’re realizing that all your personal information has been hijacked and scattered about for anyone’s consumption. And if none of those things have happened to you, you should thank your lucky stars, because for members of AdultFriendFinder.com, the Internet just went and made a mess of things for them.
According to reports from news agency Channel 4 in the UK, AdultFriendFinder.com, one of the largest hookup sites out there, with some 64 million members, has discovered that personal information of four million of those members has been stolen. Among the information that has been ripped off from the site are home addresses, email addresses, birth dates, marital statuses, and sexual preferences ― any of which will make for stellar blackmailing fodder, said the girl who watches too much Law & Order: SVU.
The thievery was uncovered when investigators looked into something called the dark web, which is a “subset of the Internet where criminals trade in illicit goods,” according to USA Today. And, I might add, also sounds like something out of SVU that involves a bunch of creeps in their parents’ basement being, well, creepy.
Although AdultFriendFinder is now working with forensic expert, Mandiant, who has helped Sony Pictures and Target, among others, when their information was stolen, the exact extent of the breach and who is behind it remains a mystery. But the company wants to assure its members that they’ll get to the bottom of this “whodunit,” and obviously they will be held accountable.
Takeaway? You never know when your personal details are going to go MIA. So if you’re on a site like AdultFriendFinder.com that boasts that it’s helped millions find swinger groups, threesomes, and “sexy fuck buddies,” it might be in your best interest, that is if you want to keep your extracurricular activities private, to quit using your real name and work email. But, hey, maybe some of you like the thrill of getting caught, so in that case godspeed.
