Thousands of Hongkongers outed: Ashley Madison members brace for fallout from hacked data of 37 million users

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It is only a matter of time before the data from the Ashley Madison hack is freely searchable online. Photo: AP

Published: 11:30am, 20 Aug 2015Updated: 2:37pm, 20 Aug 2015

Users of Ashley Madison, the pro-infidelity dating website, are at risk of being outed after hackers dumped details of around 37 million accounts online.

An examination of the hacked data by the South China Morning Post unearthed thousands of '.hk' email addresses, including official government accounts. Credit card, home addresses and telephone numbers, and even user sexual preferences are also included in the leak.

While Avid Life Media, Ashley Madison's parent company, has not officially confirmed the authenticity of the leak, several leading security experts have vouched for it.

Brian Krebs, a cybersecurity researcher who broke the news of the original hack, was initially skeptical about the leaked data published this week.

However, in an update posted to his blog on Wednesday night, he wrote that "there is every indication this dump is the real deal".

"I've now spoken with three vouched sources who all have reported finding their information and last four digits of their credit card numbers in the leaked database," Krebs wrote.

The Post independently confirmed that a number of email addresses used in the past to register accounts with Ashley Madison appeared in the leak.

WATCH: Owner of cheating website Ashley Madison confirms data leak

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