New Docuseries Reveals Secrets Behind Cheating Website AshleyMadison.com & Its Infamous Hack

Hulu and ABC News’ new three-part docuseries The Ashley Madison Affair investigates the website AshleyMadison.com, which is used by married people to have affairs. In 2015, it was famously hacked leading to embarrassing revelations about its users.

The website was created by Darren Morgenstern in 2001 and with CEO Noel Biderman. Their motto is, “Life is short. Have an affair.”

Millions signed up for this service and were looking for love, sex, companionship and more that their marriage is not providing while deceiving their partners. Men sign up and pay to send women messages. The website is free for women to use.

Ashley Madison’s executives didn’t consider the threat of hacking and had lax security. In 2015, staff received a message from The Impact Team, a hacker group, who threatened to release all their client information online if the website was not shut down. The company did not believe the threat was real, but it was soon proven wrong. 

The Impact Team hacked the website and the users’ private information, including contact information, names and bedroom fantasies, was shared across the internet. One celebrity who was revealed to be a customer was Josh Duggar, a reality TV star who was known to preach Christian and family values. 

The second episode follows how this hack ruined many careers, destroyed people’s marriages and in a few cases caused people to commit suicide. 

One story focuses on Stefany Phillips, who got a call from a woman who was having an affair with her husband for one and a half years. She was horrified to find out that her husband had been using Ashley Madison to cheat on her. 

50 BEST CELEBRITY BIKINIS SLIDESHOW!

Biderman remains unapologetic for creating the website, even when speaking to wives who were cheated on. He claims that affairs were already happening before the website was created.

Biderman is married to Amanda Biderman and had claimed that he never had an affair with any other woman. This was proven untrue during the hacks, which showed he was interested in escorts and women ages 18 and 19. He resigned as CEO later that year. 

It was found that Ashley Madison created fake female profiles in order to create more profit. The docuseries states that in 2013, 22,000 fake profiles were created. The company’s profit increased from $71 million to $180 million in two years.

The company had to get rid of all the fake accounts after an investigation by the Federal Trade Commission and lawsuit by users.