As the imminent fallout of the Ashley Madison data breach is set to drive up sales of flowers, chocolate and diamonds and provide new business for divorce lawyers, it’s important to note that the 37 million members of the cheating website are not the only ones who’ve looked for romance online and been affected by a data breach. Ashley Madison’s parent company, Avid Life Media, also owns the websites Cougar Life, for older women looking to date younger men and Established Men, a website that helps “connect ambitious and attractive girls with successful and generous benefactors to fulfill their lifestyle needs.” Both of those web properties have also been affected by the breach and may experience a leak of user data. Additionally, there is a history of the severely sensitive information people entrust to dating websites being compromised. 

Back in May, it was revealed that 3.5 million of the 64 million users of AdultFriendFinder had their information compromised. CNN Money reported that “Included in the exposed personal information are customers' email addresses, usernames, passwords, birthdays and zip codes, in addition to their sexual preferences,” and that the hacker in question “blackmailed Adult FriendFinder, telling the site he would expose the data online unless the company paid him $100,000.” Some Twitter users were Tweeting out the names of those affected by this breach and cross-referencing their personal information to social media profiles. 

In 2013, Cupid Media, which operates niche dating websites such as MilitaryCupid, which brings together military singles with local singles, as well as LatinAmericanCupid and ThaiLoveLinks.com, had 42 million customer records leaked online. According to KrebsOnSecurity, the breach included “names, email addresses, unencrypted passwords and birthdays,” opening the door to potential account hijacking. 

Back in 2012 users seeking long term relationships on eHarmony were affected by a data breach when 1.5 million passwords were stolen and released in hacking forums. 

However, hackers of online dating websites aren’t all malicious. Last year Wired published this warm and fuzzy article about mathematician and coder Chris McKinlay who hacked OKCupid to perform data analysis in his quest to find love online. 

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