The Ashley Madison hack is hurting more than just the CEO. People have started committing suicide.
At least two people out of the 37 million Ashley Madison users outed as potential adulterers this week have committed suicide, police say, although it is still unclear whether their deaths were a direct result of the hack.
Toronto police said in a press conference Monday they are investigating at least “two unconfirmed reports of suicides associated with the leak of Ashley Madison's customers' profile.”
Via the AP:
Toronto Police acting staff-Supt. Bryce Evans said the hack is having an “enormous social and economic fallout.”
“This hack is one of the largest data breaches in the world,” Evans said. “This is affecting all of us. The social impact behind this leak, we're talking about families, we're talking about children, we're talking about wives, their male partners.”
It is not clear if that number includes Capt. Michael Gorman, a Texas police chief who killed himself last Thursday, apparently after news broke that his official email address had listed in the hack.
Meanwhile, cops are busy with other issues originating from the hack. Evans said his office has confirmed that some users have already been contacted by criminals trying to extort them. In fact, there have been other, unconfirmed cases of hate crimes linked to the data dump.
Hollywood has had their hands full too. One management firm is charging at least $10,000/month to handle PR for Hollywood actors in case their information is leaked to the press.
