Ashley Madison offers $500K reward for help catching hackers

The parent company of the infidelity website Ashley Madison is offering a cash reward for information leading to the arrest of the hackers who stole and dumped private client data last week.

Toronto Police Department Acting Staff Superintendent Bryce Evans confirmed in a Monday press conference that Avid Life Media has offered to pay $500,000 Canadian — around $380,000 U.S. — for the information.

Evans directly addressed both the hackers, known as Impact Team, and potential recipients of the reward money during the conference.

“Your actions are illegal and will not be tolerated,” Evans said to Impact Team. “This is your wake-up call.

“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 continued. “You know the Impact Team has crossed the line. Do the right thing and reach out to us.”

The Toronto Police Department is spearheading the investigation into the hack, which revealed personal data for up to 37 million clients. The released data included email addresses, credit card information and internal company emails.

Adding a fly to the ointment, some of the internal emails released in the dump indicate that a former Ashley Madison official hacked a competitor’s site.

“[Online magazine nerve.com] did a very lousy job building their platform. I got their entire user base,” Founding Chief Technology Officer Raja Bhatia told CEO Noel Biderman in an email. “Also, I can turn any non-paying user into a paying user, vice versa, compose messages between users, check unread stats, etc.”

Cybersecurity experts are divided on whether law enforcement is likely to apprehend the Impact Team hackers.

Security Editor Dan Goodin says the alleged group left behind digital “footprints” in the giant 30 GB file of internal emails. Those traces, Goodin writes in Ars Technica, could help lead police to the identity of Impact Team.

John McAfee, founder of the eponymous antivirus software, made the controversial claim on Monday that the hack was “an inside job” done by a disgruntled female employee.