Ashley Madison, a social network designed solely for those searching for extramarital affairs, suffered a significant setback in 2015. Ashley Madison continued operating despite an unprecedented data breach which sent shockwaves through digital society, raising serious privacy, security, and morality concerns. This article chronicles Ashley Madison from its conception to its recovery post hack, exploring its resilience despite scandal and controversy.
Ashley Madison: An Overview Ashley Madison was an influential website founded in 2001 under the slogan, “Life Is Short”. It provided couples and individuals an online platform to explore sexual desires; critics have repeatedly condemned its immoral business model and creation of false profiles to increase user base.
Ashley Madison faced an unprecedented data breach in 2015 when hacker group The Impact Team managed to access and expose millions of user’s personal information through publicly accessible databases like LinkedIn. The leak exposed user profiles, email addresses and credit card data which resulted in numerous lawsuits being filed by dissatisfied customers as well as irreparable damage being done to Ashley Madison’s reputation.
Ashley Madison took swift and decisive measures in response to their security breach and reputational setback, quickly taking steps to rectify and repair their infrastructure by strengthening data protection protocols, verifying processes and purging fraudulent profiles created to attract new users. They continued operations while doing their best to regain user trust despite scandal and breach.
Rebranding and Restoration of Trust
Ashley Madison made an aggressive attempt at recovering, by initiating an ambitious rebranding initiative and tightening up their privacy and data protection policies in an attempt to reassure users. These changes combined with consistent marketing initiatives resulted in gradual trust restoration among its userbase.
Ashley Madison emerged unscathed from its data breach scandal of 2015 and underwent major transformations to enhance security, privacy and user experience. It may have suffered greatly due to these events but still managed to provide extramarital affairs while improving security protocols so as to remain operational and provide service.
Ashley Madison now operates globally and caters to a specific niche market. Ashley Madison stands as proof that there’s no such thing as bad press; in spite of a major scandal surrounding its services, it has come out stronger with regards to privacy and security for users.
