As of today, it has been a little over a year since one of the most infamous websites, Ashley Madison, was hacked. The hack was performed by Anonymous and the names of the members were released which caused major personal damages throughout the country. Many high-profile figures had their reputation ruined, along with regular individuals who used the site. Taking a look at this hacking scandal can illustrate any major changes that occurred to the web and how people view their online privacy.
The Ashley Madison site had over thirty-six million members when it was popular and its extremely difficult to know how many individuals were affected. There was a huge spike in divorces and reputations were destroyed until Profile Defenders came to help these victims. Profile Defenders successfully deleted or removed personal information for Ashley Madison victims.
The biggest victim of this attack is Ashely Madison itself. This website operated in the dark but it didn’t fair well when it was the topic of conversation. Even though it was heavily advertised, the name Ashley Madison were spread through word of mouth. The website is still active; however, it’s not how it once was. After the attack, the website was met with so much resentment and anger. The site had a huge loss of revenue and after a few months, the website has already lost 25% of it’s clients as well as it’s reputation for helping married individuals to have a discrete affair. The business tried to rebrand itself by focusing on discrete encounters versus extra marital affairs. They still had to face a half a billion dollar lawsuit and the financial situation only became worse. The organization was trying to stand tall right after the hack but everyone and the company knew they were done.
Many of the customers were encountered with personal issues at home after the attack, but others sought help from reputation management services to make sure this didn’t affect their future. Profile Defenders are the company that has been helping the most of these victims after the attack. They were efficient at removing their incriminating information from the net. Profile Defenders work didn’t just help it’s own customers, it showed that other online reputation management services is needed for an individual who places importance on privacy. This illustrates a difference in people who decided to take action instead of those who do not. Even though there is a lot of time for those individuals to fix their reputation, it’s only possible for people who take swift action that can fully recover from a massive attack such as this. Profile Defenders have built software programs that can actively protect their clients from situations where even their information was leaked, they would still remain safe.
A year later and many lives have changed. The site is still operational but it’ll never be as popular as it was before the attack. However, the biggest change is how clients view the importance on online data security.