4 million dating profiles exposed in hack

AdultFriendFinder, the self-described “hottest dating, hookup and sex community,” has suffered a massive data breach, the company confirmed Thursday.

Information on roughly 4 million of its 64 million members was stolen and posted on a dark Web forum, British news outlet Channel 4 first reported.

{mosads}The data includes information on users’ sexual orientation and whether they were seeking an extramarital affair, in addition to typical personal details like emails, addresses, ages and zip codes.

Worryingly, the data dump also contains information from deleted profiles, according to Channel 4.

“Aside from the known value of compromised personal details on the dark Web, there’s certainly the potential for blackmail from this breach,” said Tim Erlin, director of IT security and risk strategy for security firm Tripwire.

The site’s users have told various media outlets they are already receiving a slews of phishing emails based on the leaked data.

ArsTechnica tied the hack to one described in an April 13 blog post by security researcher Bev Robb, who didn’t name the dating site that had been hit.

Robb attributed the digital theft to “a pissed off hacker” that the dating site owed $248,000.

“He bragged that the company and law enforcement could not touch him because he was based in Thailand,” Robb said. “His ransom demand was set at $100,000.”

AdultFriendFinder has not commented on this backstory or confirmed the size of the breach, saying investigations are ongoing.