Police: At Least Two Suicides Linked to Ashley Madison Hack
At least two people in a pool of 37 million Ashley Madison users outed as potential adulterers this week have committed suicide, police say, though it’s reportedly still unclear whether their deaths were a direct result of the hack.
Toronto police said in a press conference Monday they’re investigating at least “two unconfirmed reports of suicides associated with the leak of Ashley Madison’s customers’ profile.” Via the AP:
Toronto Police acting staff-Supt. Bryce Evans said the hack is having an “enormous social and economic fallout.”
“This hack is one of the largest data breaches in the world,” Evans said. “This is affecting all of us. The social impact behind this leak, we’re talking about families, we’re talking about children, we’re talking about wives, their male partners.”
It’s not clear if that number includes Capt. Michael Gorhum, a Texas police chief who took his own life last Thursday, apparently after news broke that his official email address had been listed in the hack.
In the meantime, cops are busy with other issues stemming from the hack—Evans said his office has confirmed that some users have already been contacted by criminals trying to extort them. And, the AP reports, there have been other, unconfirmed reports of hate crimes linked to the data dump.
