‘Bring me the head of the AC/DC-loving Ashley Madison hacker’

At a Toronto Police news conference, law enforcement officers updated the media on the investigation into the Ashley Madison hack.

In the news conference, police revealed that workers at Canada-based Avid Life Media, owner of the Ashley Madison adultery website, were greeted with a threatening message from the hackers on July 12th, accompanied by the track “Thunderstruck” by AC/DC.

@TorontoPolice News Conference Re: Ashley Madison Website Hack

Of course, we know that the hackers – who went by the name of Impact Team – kept their word, and released the Ashley Madison database.

Sign up to our free newsletter.
Security news, advice, and tips.

Acting staff superintendent Bryce Evans of the Toronto police said its role was to protect members of the public, and that the fact that some people might be offended by the Ashley Madison service would not deter it from conducting a vigorous and thorough investigation into the criminal hack.

“The ripple effect of the Impact Team’s actions has and will continue to have a long term social and economic impacts, and they have already sparked spin-offs of crimes and further victimisation. As of this morning, we have two unconfirmed reports of suicide that are associated with the leak of Ashley Madison customer profiles.

“Criminals have already engaged in online scams by claiming to provide access to the leaked website. The public needs to be aware that by clicking on these links, you are exposing your computers to malware, spyware, adware and viruses.”

Police have created a Twitter account, @AMcaseTPS in a bid to gather more information, and are calling upon the hacking community to get in touch if they have information.

Those with information are invited to call the investigation team at (416) 808-2040 or via email at [email protected]

At the end of his statement, Acting staff superintendent Bryce Evans of the Toronto police revealed that Avid Life Media is offering a CDN $500,000 reward (approximately, GBP 240,000 or USD 377,000) for information leading to the identification, arrest and prosecution of those involved in the leak of the database.

In short, bring me the head of the Ashley Madison hacker.

Bring Me The Head Of Alfredo Garcia

Further reading:

Found this article interesting? Follow Graham Cluley on Twitter or Mastodon to read more of the exclusive content we post.


Graham Cluley is a veteran of the cybersecurity industry, having worked for a number of security companies since the early 1990s when he wrote the first ever version of Dr Solomon's Anti-Virus Toolkit for Windows. Now an independent analyst, he regularly makes media appearances and is an international public speaker on the topic of cybersecurity, hackers, and online privacy. Follow him on Twitter, Mastodon, Bluesky, or drop him an email.

3 comments on “‘Bring me the head of the AC/DC-loving Ashley Madison hacker’”

  1. Carl

    I think the one thing that the general public doesn't realize is that the Ashley Madison website is just a scam of fake profiles with very few real members. It's a double whammy. Anyone paying to be a member there has gotten taken by the scam, and now they've been outed for their intentions of infidelity.

    1. Valerie McGilvrey · in reply to Carl

      I agree with you. I live in a city of about 5 million people and there are only about ten John Smith's registered there. Unrealistic!

  2. Anonymous

    That's quite a bounty.

What do you think? Leave a comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.