It’s being called one of the largest data breaches in the world. The ripple effects of the huge Ashley Madison data dump —by hackers known as the “impact team” — are still being felt around the globe.
Details of 37 million members of the cheating website have reportedly been published online.
Police in Canada confirmed today that one of the email addresses published belonged to a San Antonio police captain, who committed suicide last week.
According to KSAT, Captain Michael Gorhum was a 25-year SAPD veteran and oversaw the San Antonio Regional Intelligence Center Unit.
The announcement of the suicide was made at a news conference at Police Headquarters in Toronto, the city where the parent company of Ashley Madison is based.
According to the Daily Mail, Captain Gorhum’s death came just days after his official email address was linked to an account on the website– whose slogan is “Life is short. Have an affair.”
A colleague of Gorhum’s posted a moving tribute on Facebook: “Rest in Peace Captain Mike Gorhum. You truly are one of the guys, I’ve most respected in my Law Enforcement Career, no task too big, no goal too lofty. Never met a stranger, never backed down, always had your partner’s back or when you were in charge, your Officer’s back.”
The investigation also revealed that a second email account was reportedly linked to another member of the SAPD – a detective on the force. Ashley Madison does not verify email addresses, when signing up, so San Antonio city officials say they “cannot confirm whether these two addresses were legitimately used to access the site.” They also added that the Ashley Madison website is blocked on City officials’ computers.
Meantime parent company, Avid Life Media, is offering a $500,000 reward to anyone providing information that leads to the arrest of the hackers.
The leak has already implicated reality TV star Josh Duggar, the executive director of the Louisiana GOP, as well as state attorney Jeff Ashton –the prosecutor during the Casey Anthony trial.
Gorhum’s colleague also had this to say about his friend: “Whatever it was, I wish one of us could have reached you, could have told you, “regardless, it will be OK.” Love you Mike. This is a hard day. God bless you, and your family and the Department.”
