Cyber Risks · Krebs on Security

Top Suspect in 2015 Ashley Madison Hack Committed Suicide in 2014

Summary: KrebsOnSecurity reports that Ashley Madison's then-CEO Noel Biderman blamed an unnamed former contractor for the July 2015 breach of data on 37 million users, but the top suspect, William Brewster Harrison, had killed himself in March 2014, more than a year before the stolen data was published. Emails stolen from Biderman and published in 2015 show Harrison, hired in March 2010 to promote the site and later tied to creating phony female accounts, sent anti-Semitic and threatening messages to Biderman after his November 2011 termination, signing one 'We are legion.'

Bottom line: Ashley Madison pointed at a suspect who had been dead for over a year, and the leaked Biderman inbox showed the company had left a terminated employee's administrator access open until 2012 - a reminder that the person an organization names after a breach may not be the one who did it.

Read the original at Krebs on Security ↗

Topics
Data Breaches
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