7 Things the Ashley Madison Subscriber in Your Life Needs

If someone in your life was caught up in the Ashley Madison hack, here are some things they need.

The Ashley Madison hack—wherein a group calling themselves The Impact Team stole millions of users' data from the site—will definitely have an impact. The hackers say they'll release the data to the world if Ashley Madison, a site dedicated to helping married people cheat, doesn't shut down. That's about as likely to happen as cheating on wives and husbands is to stop, ever.

There are things Ashley Madison could have done to better protect users. And there are methods that users should have undertaken before trusting a site like that with personal data. But none of that matters now, unless you're still ready to sign up for Ashley Madison today—which I'm sure is actually happening.

But we're not here for the future customers. There are potentially 37,565,000 existing victims—that's how many "anonymous" members Ashley Madison claims to have. Maybe it's even more, assuming the Impact Team's claim that Ashley Madison never deleted accounts they were paid to delete is true. (Ashley Madison is no longer making users pay, go figure.)

What are the victims to do? Here's a quick list of items to consider, should the data go public, most of which they can find online, just like they found their paramour.

Click To View Slideshow »

Hide the Matches

If you find out your significant other was using Ashley Madison, we suggest you buy a copy of the movie Waiting to Exhale (sorry, it's not streaming) and leave it in the Blu-ray player, queued up to this scene, with a sign on the remote control that says "Click Play." They'll get the message.

Protect the Electronics

Smashed smartphones are going to become de rigueur as jilted spouses take their pent-up frustration out on the (mostly) innocent handset. An OtterBox Defender ($59.90) is a smart investment to make before that happens. Even smarter: Get AppleCare.

Keep Up the Communication

Look, we're not going to judge if you're caught in this Ashley Madison mess and still want to keep the affair going. But be smart about it, dummy. Invest in a burner. You could actually get a cheap, pre-paid, disposable burner phone to use for phone calls, but if you've got an expensive smartphone, an account with the app Burner should do. It gives you access to private, easily done away with phone numbers right on your iPhone or Android smartphone.

Get Online Counsel

Nowadays, couples can schedule a virtual therapy visit. (Though, to be honest, if someone's going to get angry, maybe it's best if you're out in public.) But if you want to stay in, find yourself a marriage counselor who can and will meet online. For example, the therapists and life coaches at Growing Self, based in Colorado, will gladly meet over Skype, Google Hangouts, or FaceTime.

Think of the Children

If kids are about to feel the pain caused by someone's Ashley Madison data getting leaked, there a wealth of books out there that can take out the sting when they find out. Highly rated books (with Kindle editions) include It's Not Your Fault, Koko Bear: A Read-Together Book for Parents and Young Children During Divorce and the much more straightforward titled Two Homes.

Lawyers Are Expensive

If you suspect there's a legal proceeding headed your way—say, oh, divorce court—it's never too late to beg your friends and family and the public for help. It's the crowd-sourcing way! FundRazr has a section specifically to help people raise money for legal costs.

A New Online Account

If the writing is on the wall for the former Ashley Madison user in your life, hook them up with an account on the next service they'll need: Tinder or Match.com, or maybe Grindr if there are more specific needs. (Too soon?)

About Our Expert

Eric Griffith

Senior Editor, Features

My Experience

I've been writing about computers, the internet, and technology professionally since 1992, more than half of that time with PCMag. I arrived at the end of the print era of PC Magazine as a senior writer. I served for a time as managing editor of business coverage before settling back into the features team for the last decade and a half. I write features on all tech topics, plus I handle several special projects, including the Readers' Choice and Business Choice surveys and yearly coverage of the Best ISPs and Best Gaming ISPs, Best Products of the Year, and Best Brands (plus the Best Brands for Tech Support, Longevity, and Reliability).

I started in tech publishing right out of college, writing and editing stories about hardware and development tools. I migrated to software and hardware coverage for families, and I spent several years exclusively writing about the then-burgeoning technology called Wi-Fi. I was on the founding staff of several magazines, including Windows Sources, FamilyPC, and Access Internet Magazine. All of which are now defunct, and it's not my fault. I have freelanced for publications as diverse as Sony Style, Playboy.com, and Flux. I got my degree at Ithaca College in, of all things, television/radio. But I minored in writing so I'd have a future.

In my long-lost free time, I wrote some novels, a couple of which are not just on my hard drive: BETA TEST ("an unusually lighthearted apocalyptic tale," according to Publishers' Weekly) and a YA book called KALI: THE GHOSTING OF SEPULCHER BAY. Go get them on Kindle.

I work from my home in Ithaca, NY, and did it long before pandemics made it cool.

The Technology I Use

My first computer was a Laser 128, an Apple II-compatible clone with an integrated keyboard, matched with an eye-straining monochrome green monitor. I used it to type papers in college for other people for money...until I discovered the Mac SE in the college computer room. That changed my life. My first cellphone was a Samsung Uproar—the silver one with the built-in MP3 player from the Napster days (the pre-iPod era).

I use an iPhone 15 Pro hourly and an iPad Air infrequently (but I'm always in the market for a cheap Android tablet). I have a PlayStation 5 just to play Spider-Man, and several Windows machines, including a work-issued Lenovo ThinkPad. I talk to Alexa and Siri all day long. I do the majority of my computing on a 15-inch LG Gram laptop attached to a Thunderbolt hub to run a multi-monitor setup—I overdid it on the power needed to simply work from home.

I'm most at home in Microsoft Word after decades of writing there. More and more, I turn to services like Google Docs, using tools like Grammarly. I use Google's Chrome browser due to an addiction to several extensions I think I can't live without, but probably could. I use Excel extensively on data-intensive stories, but for chart creation, we've switched over entirely to using Infogram for interactive features that are hard to find elsewhere. I do a lot of graphics work for my stories, but limit myself to the free and amazing Paint.NET software to edit images.

I'm a firm evangelist for using the cloud for backup and syncing of files; I'm primarily using Dropbox, which has never failed me, but I also have redundant setups on Microsoft OneDrive, plus extra picture backups on Amazon Photos and iCloud. Why take chances? For entertainment, mine is a streaming-only household—my kid has never seen network TV and barely been exposed to commercials, thanks to Roku and Amazon Music. The house is peppered with smart speakers from Amazon for instant gratification and control of smart home devices like multiple Wyze cameras and Nest Protect smoke detectors. I've got accounts on all the major social networks, to my horror. I have a robot vacuum for each floor of the house. I want a 3D printer, but not sure what I'd use it for.

Read the latest from Eric Griffith

Read full bio