An international roster of police and private investigators are vowing to vigorously pursue the people who hacked the Ashley Madison dating website for cheaters, with the cheating site offering a $500,000 reward and appealing for help from hackers around the world.

The full-court press comes amid a report of at least two suicides of people whose personal information was included in the massive dump of account data for Ashley Madison, which carried the tag line "Life is short. Have an affair." It's too early to say if the exposures were the proximate reason the individuals took their lives, but the deaths were discussed during a press conference the Toronto Police Service held early Monday morning. Bryce Evans, acting staff superintendent, said the outing of so many people in committed relationships cheating on their partners crossed a line that could destroy lives and careers of millions of people around the world.

Wakeup call

He called on hackers around the world to provide tips to law enforcement agencies working to identify the people who thoroughly rooted the servers of Ashley Madison parent company Avid Life Media. He also said the investigation was being carried out jointly by his department, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, the US Department of Homeland Security, the FBI, and others. A Homeland Security official said the department investigates matters potentially involving the extortion of federal employees. As Ars reported last week, leaked account details showed hundreds of federal workers used Internet connections in their federal offices to pay membership fees for and use the site. Additionally, he said Avid Life Media has pledged a $500,000 reward for information leading to the identification of the people responsible for the compromise, who have dubbed themselves Impact Team.

"This is your wake-up call," Evans said, addressing the Impact Team members directly. "We are now doing a serious investigation and inviting all our partners."

Evans said he was appealing to fellow hackers around the world because they or someone they know may have information that was included in the more than 50 gigabytes of data that is now a part of the permanent Internet record. The crowd-sourcing attempt is a potentially savvy move, since hackers often have the mindset and skills police investigators lack in closing in on people carrying out online crimes.

Bryce provided additional color that wasn't widely known until now. For instance, the first indication Ashley Madison had been breached came on the morning of July 12 when several Ashley Madison employees turned on their computers and heard them blaring the AC/DC song "Thunderstruck." (As Wired reporter Kim Zetter noted, that's the same song played by hackers who hit an Iranian nuclear facility in 2012.) A message displayed on their screens informed them of the hack and threatened to release e-mail addresses, credit-card data, and other subscriber information unless executives immediately and permanently took down the Ashley Madison website. A week later, after Ashley Madison failed to comply, people identifying themselves as Impact Team members released details for two Ashley Madison members. The full outing took place last Tuesday.

In the July 12 message, Impact Team members also ordered the shutdown of Established Men, another Avid Life Media-owned dating website for wealthy men and people who want to meet them. So far there are no reports of member data for that site being leaked online. It wouldn't be surprising if information for those subscribers is published soon.

Post updated to add details in the third paragraph about Homeland Security investigations and detail in the sixth paragraph about Thunderstruck.