Ashley Madison's Rebrand: From Infidelity to Inclusivity

Despite a massive data breach that exposed the identities of millions of users, Ashley Madison has undergone a "complete rehaul" and now boasts 85 million users. The site's spokesperson insists that monogamy "doesn't work" for everyone and that the company is simply meeting a need by facilitating infidelity. However, former employees say that the company justified its business model with the founder's view that cheating was inevitable, regardless of whether their site existed.

In the wake of a massive data breach in 2015, Ashley Madison, a dating site marketed to adulterers, has undergone a significant transformation. The site now boasts 85 million users, with about four million new users signing up each year. According to spokesperson Paul Keable, the company has undergone a "complete rehaul" to "rebuild trust."

Keable insists that monogamy "doesn't work" for everyone and that Ashley Madison is simply meeting a need by facilitating infidelity. "They’d say, 'Who’s your biggest competitor?' And I’d say, 'The Bible,'" former Ashley Madison vice president of sales Evan Back told filmmakers in a recent documentary about the data breach.

However, former employees say that the company justified its business model with the founder's view that cheating was inevitable, regardless of whether their site existed. They found that 30 percent of people on already-existing dating sites were already married.

Despite the site's promise of anonymity and security, its data security defenses were not enough to protect the 37 million users across 40 countries it had amassed by 2015. Former IT employees detailed how lax the site's security measures were, while employees who handled billing and customer service detailed how they would brush off concerned spouses asking after suspicious credit card charges.

"It was like gambling with people’s lives," Back said in retrospect.

That year, the company was hacked by a group called "The Impact Team," which demanded that the company shutter its business within 30 days, or they would release its users' data on the "dark web." Although the company hired a cybersecurity team, they did not meet the hackers' demands. Seven days later, the hacker group followed through on the threats, releasing data including information from people who believed they had deleted their accounts entirely—a service that the company charged money for. A second data dump included users' credit card details and even nude photos.

The company offered $500,000 to anyone who would expose the hacker, who has yet to be identified.

Despite exhaustive attempts by law enforcement and cybersecurity experts brought in by the company, the identity of the elusive Impact Team was never discovered.

"Now, we look at [security] as a whole-of-company approach," Keable said. "Every person's job is security, every person's job is discretion."

Protecting its users is a "Sisyphean task," Keable said. "We need to push the security boulder up the hill every day."

"I think there's a misunderstanding with the idea that [Ashley Madison was in the] wrong, given that we've seen since then that multiple companies have had similar types of events. It's part of the maturation process of the online community world," he said.

Ashley Madison has seen an increase in membership since the documentary was released, Keable said. "People who are unaware of us that are struggling with their situation think, 'Maybe that's my solution.'"

Ashley Madison did not work with Netflix on the documentary, but Keable pointed out that they were an integral part of Hulu's mini-series "The Ashley Madison Affair."

"Hulu was interested in doing the whole story - what happened in 2015, what happened afterward and where [the company] is now," Keable said. "Myself, my colleagues, we're pretty proud of the fact that despite other people's beliefs, we're standing loud and proud today and delivering on people's needs," he said. "It's a pretty cool story, but we can't wait for the next chapter."