Former Ashley Madison employees admit security was ‘put on the back burner’ in explosive Netflix docuseries

Former Ashley Madison employees have admitted that security was ‘left on the back burner’ in Netflix’s explosive new docuseries – and revealed that the company’s paid feature that promised to wipe accounts from the internet was all a scam.

In 2015, millions of marriages were destroyed when a hacker leaked the names of every member who signed up for the controversial dating platform Ashley Madison.

Before the infamous hack, the website – which was designed to help married people cheat on their spouses – promised anonymity and privacy for its 37 million users.

CEO Noel Biderman constantly boasted in interviews about the company’s commitment to protecting its members, and its website even featured a slew of badges claiming it had earned awards for its impressive cybersecurity.

But now ex-Ashley Madison employees have admitted it was all a tactic used to get more customers on the new Netflix show, Ashley Madison: Sex, Lies, And Scandal.

They admitted that not only were the prices completely fabricated, but that the website had actually taken no extra steps to protect its customers.

Some also said the service that allowed users to pay extra to have their accounts deleted was a cash grab that actually yielded nothing.

‘Safety was something that came up quite often. We talked about it, we worried about it, but it just kind of stayed on the back burner,” Amjit Jethani, former director of product for Ashley Madison, wrote in the document.

He explained that the focus was more on “keeping up with growth” than protecting customers, and that many employees “understood” that a hack was a possibility.

“It was well understood that if any of the web properties were hacked it would have been almost catastrophic. The hope was that it wouldn’t happen,” he said.

At one point in the series, an old clip was shown where CEO Noel praised the company’s safety measures in an interview.

“At the end of the day, our servers are in a remote location, so I think we’re untouchable,” he said. ‘We do everything we can to protect privacy.’

Evan Back, who was Ashley Madison’s vice president of sales for nearly a decade, called Noel a “snake oil salesman” as he thought about it.

‘We know [what he said] is not true. The promise of security, anonymity and guaranteed safety was something we said. It wasn’t something we did,” he admitted.

“If people want to run a business based on security and keeping customers secret, but with very little security, then you’re pushing yourself to the limit.

“It was like, how far can I go before someone comes in and hacks us? It was like gambling with people’s lives.’

At the bottom of Ashley Madison’s website was an image of a medal and the words “Trusted Security Award.” But according to journalist Claire Brownell, that was ‘completely made up’.

“Someone on the site must have made it with Photoshop or something,” she theorized.

“We had all kinds of medals on our website that gave the impression that we were rock solid and airtight,” Evan said, adding that they were actually a “complete misrepresentation.”

Joseph Cox – a reporter who has examined in detail everything that emerged during the hack, including numerous private emails between Noel and his staffers – called Ashley Madison “sloppy.”

“It became clear that security seemed like an afterthought,” he revealed. ‘Discussions that received much more attention were about branding, about PR.’

While sifting through all the leaked files, Joseph said he discovered that Ashley Madison’s “extra paid feature,” which claimed it would erase all traces of a user from the site, was all an outright lie.

“Ashley Madison advertised this additional paid feature where you gave the company more money and they promised to completely wipe your account,” he explained. “There would be no evidence that you ever used Ashley Madison.”

An image of an email from Noel flashed across the screen, in which he confessed that they “don’t actually delete the accounts” and admitted: “We have to deliver the product we paid for.”

Evan explained, “We would charge customers $20 if they permanently deleted a record of ever being a member of Ashley Madison.

‘I thought it was a great idea at first. It raised a lot of money in a short time, about a few million dollars.

“What I didn’t know was that we were charging, but we weren’t. Nothing was removed.”

Joseph described the company’s failure to do what it advertised as “evil and vague,” adding, “Ashley Madison was ripping off customers.”

The Netflix docuseries – featuring collaborators and former users – was released on May 15.