A hacker has exposed the personal details of over 4 million people who are members of the Adult FriendFinder. As well as personal details, the information revealed the sexual preferences of the members and showed whether they were married or not.
Further adding insult to injury, the 4 million leaked details were also of previous members who had deleted their accounts.
A Channel 4 News investigation discovered a forum where a user called ROR[RG] had started posting all the information which included names, postcodes, email addresses, dates of birth.
Remarkably, the hacker did not reveal credit card information, presumably keeping it to sell on to a third-party.
According to the Independent, more than 7 million people from the UK are members of the 63 million strong Adult FriendFinder network with 'dozens' of leaked profiles reported to include sensitive UK government and military profiles.
Cybercrime specialist for PwC and former head of the Metropolitan Police's electronic crime unit told Channel 4: "Where you've got names, dates of birth, ZIP codes, then that provides an opportunity to actually target specific individuals whether they be in government or healthcare for example, so you can profile that person and send more targeted blackmail-type emails,"
Speaking to Channel 4, Friend Finder Network (which owns Adult FriendFinder) released a statement saying:
"We have already begun working closely with law enforcement and have launched a comprehensive investigation with the help of leading third-party forensics expert.
"We pledge to take the appropriate steps needed to protect our customers if they are affected."