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Ashley Madison CEO quits, Facebook hits 1bn users in a day and the Lizard Squad hack tool

August 31, 2015

Ashley Madison CEO Resigns

Infidelity dating website Ashley Madison has been the target of data breaches in recent weeks, and given the unconventional service that the site provides, it is perhaps even more distressing for users whose personal data has been made public. The latest casualty of the hacking incident is the company’s CEO.

Aside from the details of over 33 million accounts, personal emails from company CEO Noel Biderman were leaked and disseminated, prompting rumors that Biderman himself had an affair. Now in the wake of the breach, Biderman has stepped down from his position as CEO.  

“This change is in the best interest of the company and allows us to continue to provide support to our members and dedicated employees,” the company said in an official statement. “We are steadfast in our commitment to our customer base.”

The Ashley Madison website will run as normal as the company continues promises to continue the hunt for the hackers.

Facebook hits 1 billion users in day

Facebook has hit yet another remarkable milestone in its journey, as CEO Mark Zuckerberg claimed the site had over 1 billion users in a single day for the first time.

Zuckerberg wrote in a post that “1 in 7 people on Earth used Facebook to connect with their friends and family” on that day.

Facebook welcomed its one billionth user in 2012.  The growth and usership is remarkable and rather than watching the company plateau, Zuckerberg only believes there is more to come for the social media giant.

“This was the first time we reached this milestone, and it’s just the beginning of connecting the whole world,” Zuckerberg said.

Teenagers use Lizard Squad hack

The hacker group Lizard Squad, not content with causing its own havoc, created a tool that allows people to plan similar cyber attacks as those it has launched itself.

Six teenagers in the U.K. have now been arrested for doing just this. None of the perpetrators are believed to be actual members of the Lizard Squad group, which claimed to have knocked XBox and Playstation services offline this past Christmas, but they are believed to have committed DDoS attacks – flooding websites with huge amounts of data to take them down.

The National Crime Agency (NCA) said that the teenagers targeted organizations like a national newspaper, a school, gaming companies, and online ecommerce stores, according to the BBC.

Each of the six teenagers have been released on bail.

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Filed Under: Consumer, Mobile, Social, Weekly Digest

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