Evans and the Toronto police did not give any further information on the identities of the two people or their connection to the Ashley Madison hack, the BBC reported, but he did offer a C$500,000 ($378,415 U.S.) reward for any information on the hackers, The Impact Team. While the police are still searching for the hackers, officer Evans made a point of stating that their days are numbered.
“I want to make it very clear to you your actions are illegal and we will not be tolerating them. This is your wake-up call,” he said.
33 million account details were stolen in the hack, which was described as “very sophisticated” by Detective John Menard, supervisor of the Toronto Police Department’s Technological Crime Section. Evans attests that only the last four digits of credit cards were leaked, but still advises those whose may have been affected to review their accounts.
The Ashley Madison hack occurred on July 12 when employees of the site’s parent company, Avid Life media were met with a message to the music of AC/DC’s “Thunderstruck” when they attempted to log in to the company accounts. Officer Evans revealed that the hack has spurred “spin-offs of crimes” connected to people engaging in “online scams by claiming to provide access to the leaked websites.”
The police are also not above implementing the tried and true method of “can’t beat ’em, join ’em” to catch the hackers, it seems. The police are said to be seeking information from the hacking community about The Impact Team. They’re also hitting the tweet streets, setting up the Twitter account @AMCaseTPS and hashtag #AMCaseTPS to gather more information.
#AMcaseTPS This account allows for “Direct Messaging” w/o having to follow our account. We will respond to all messages as soon as we can
— TPS AM Investigation (@AMcaseTPS) August 24, 2015
Recent events suggest these methods will bring out the hackers from hiding. In 2011, the F.B.I. turned hacker Hector “Sabu” Monsegur, former member of online vigilante group Anonymous, into an informant. From 2011 until 2014, Monsegur helped the FBI prevent upwards of 300 attacks on governments and corporations.
