Ashley Madison looks to put data breach scandal to bed with $11m settlement

The parent company behind infidelity website Ashley Madison has offered a $11.5 million settlement to those who brought class action suits against the company in the wake of the notorious breach.

The 2015 breach saw the personal details of 33 million users stolen, prompting many bids to sue the company.

Data that was stolen in the breach included details such as names, addresses and birth dates

The $11.2 million sum is intended in part to compensate claims of disgruntled users, with the majority of the figure, $8.5 million, to be put towards dealing with multiple class actions. Ruby Life is the firm putting the offer forward.

While the company, Ruby Life, has undergone a rebranding, it is still standing firm that it is a provider of “open-minded” dating services, according to its website. Ashley Madison is also still advertised on the site.

READ MORE: Ashley Madison website hit with $1.6 million fine over 2015 security breach

Adam Nash, EMEA Manager at Webroot said:  “The 2015 Ashley Madison hack is one of the most notorious data breaches in recent history because of the nature of the data which was leaked. Putting that aside, it really highlighted the wide-ranging repercussions that a data breach can have not only on a company, but the individuals and families of those affected.”

This data breach attracted worldwide attention, raising the profile the data breach problem that has exploded in the two years since this instance.

“Ahead of GDPR’s introduction next year, businesses need to take heed of this pay out, as it could be much larger in the future. All companies, especially those dealing with proprietary information or customer data – must balance their security resources against their risk tolerance, and look at threat intelligence solutions that provide them with the greatest scope of protection. Our research has shown that despite needing to become compliant to continue operations as normal, nearly half of UK SMBs (49 percent) are not confident they can meet the stringent requirements for compliance,” said Nash.