Virus and scam alert: beware the “Your spouse was found in the Ashley Madison list” subject line

As you may know from the news broadcasts, last week 36 million names, addresses and phone numbers of registered users at the Ashley Madison site (which makes it easy to cheat on your spouse) were posted on the Internet. All these records are now out in the open, exposing highly sensitive personal information.

Internet criminals are going to exploit this in many ways, sending spam, phishing and possibly blackmail messages, using social engineering tactics to make people click on links or open infected attachments.

You may see an email that may contain something similar to the subject line as “Your spouse was found in the Ashley Madison list”, or even “Your name was compromised!” – whether your name was on the list or not, the hackers will exploit your fear and try to benefit from it.

The hackers may take it a step further, and manipulate business owners or administrators, by offering to “check and see if their employees’ names, were found on the list of cheaters”,  in hopes of you clicking on the link or the attachment that will contain a virus, or will lead to the page that will attempt to collect your personal information.

Be on the lookout for suspicious or threatening email messages which slip through spam filters that have anything to do with “Ashley Madison”, or that refer to or are similar to “cheating spouses”, or “your name on the list” and delete them immediately, in the office or at the house.