Infidelity site Ashley Madison hacked

Infidelity website Ashley Madison, an international dating site with the tagline: ''Life is short. Have an affair'' has been hacked.

The site which encourages married users to cheat on their spouses and boasts 37 million members had its data hacked by a group which calls itself the Impact Team.

At least two other dating sites, Cougar Life and Established Men, also owned by the same parent group, Avid Life Media, (ALM) also had their data compromised.

The Impact Team claimed to have complete access to the company's database, which included, in addition to user records for every single member, also the financial records of ALM and other proprietary information. The group, for now, had released only 40MB of data, including credit card details and several ALM documents.

Information security journalist, Brian Krebs, who broke the news said ALM had confirmed that the hacked material was genuine, and the company was working to remove from the net the material that had already been posted.

According to the Impact Team, the initial leak was only a taste of more to come. The Impact Team also revealed a manifesto threatening release of further information if Ashley Madison and Established Men were not permanently closed.

''Avid Life Media has been instructed to take Ashley Madison and Established Men offline permanently in all forms, or we will release all customer records, including profiles with all the customers' secret sexual fantasies and matching credit card transactions, real names and addresses, and employee documents and emails. The other websites may stay online,'' the group's statement reads.

Though the site operator confirmed there had been an ''intrusion'' it did not elaborate on the extent.

According to one security expert a small percentage of the site's user account data had been published online.

Ashley Madison said it operated in over 50 countries and had 37 million users, more than a million of whom lived in the UK.

Canada-based, Avid Life Media said in a statement, "We apologise for this unprovoked and criminal intrusion into our customers' information.

"We have been able to secure our sites, and close the unauthorised access points.

"Any and all parties responsible for this act of cyber-terrorism will be held responsible.