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Media Discourses Surrounding'non-Ideal'victims: The This may be the author’s version of a work that was submitted/accepted for publication in the following source: Cross, Cassandra, Parker, Megan,& Sansom, Daniel (2019) Media discourses surrounding ’non-ideal’ victims: The case of the Ashley Madison data breach. International Review of Victimology, 25(1), pp. 53-69. This file was downloaded from: https://eprints.qut.edu.au/119373/ c Consult author(s) regarding copyright matters This work is covered by copyright. Unless the document is being made available under a Creative Commons Licence, you must assume that re-use is limited to personal use and that permission from the copyright owner must be obtained for all other uses. If the docu- ment is available under a Creative Commons License (or other specified license) then refer to the Licence for details of permitted re-use. It is a condition of access that users recog- nise and abide by the legal requirements associated with these rights. If you believe that this work infringes copyright please provide details by email to [email protected] Notice: Please note that this document may not be the Version of Record (i.e. published version) of the work. Author manuscript versions (as Sub- mitted for peer review or as Accepted for publication after peer review) can be identified by an absence of publisher branding and/or typeset appear- ance. If there is any doubt, please refer to the published source. https://doi.org/10.1177/0269758017752410 Media discourses surrounding ‘non- ideal’ victims: The case of the Ashley Madison data breach Abstract Data breaches are an increasingly common event across businesses globally. Many companies have been subject to large-scale breaches. Consequently, the exposure of 37 million customers of the Ashley Madison website is not an extraordinary event in and of itself. However, Ashley Madison is an online dating website predominantly known for facilitating extramarital affairs. Therefore, the nature of this website (and business) is very different to those who have previously been breached. This article examines one of the media discourses surrounding the victims of the Ashely Madison data breach. It particular, it illustrates examples of victim blaming evident in the print media towards individuals (or customers) who had their personal details exposed. Importantly, it highlights the emerging tension within this particular case, of the strong victim blaming narrative contrasted against those who attempted to challenge this discourse and refocus attentions on the actual offenders, and the criminality of the act. The article concludes that victims of this data breach were exposed to victim blaming, based on the perceived immorality of the website they were connected to and their actions in subscribing, rather than focusing on the data breach itself, and the blatant criminality of the offenders who exposed the sensitive information. 1 Keywords Data breach, victim blaming, hacking, security, victims Introduction In July 2015, a team of hackers calling themselves ‘The Impact Team’ broke into the customer database of the ‘Ashley Madison’ website. They stole internal company documents of Avid Life Media (ALM), company emails, and more importantly, the personal details of over 37 million customers, who were at one point, subscribed to the website. The incident was first reported on the 19 July, through making available a 40GB file of these documents and customer credit card details on the internet (Krebs, 2015). While data breaches such as this are by no means a unique event (for example, there have been prominent business breaches of Sony, Target, Home Depot, JP Morgan, Anthem as well as government departments in the United States of America, Turkey and the Philippines (McCandless, 2016)), this data breach was a significant event based on the character of the website and the sensitive nature of data released. Ashley Madison is a well-known website which facilitates extramarital affairs, and had the tagline of ‘Life is short. Have an affair’ (it has since rebranded to “Find your moment”). The alleged motive behind the data breach concerned the infidelity promoted and enabled by the website and the perceived immorality of subscribers. The Impact Team released a statement with the initial data dump, threatening to expose further, more personal and sensitive details of Ashley Madison customers, unless the website was shut down (Impact Team, 2015). Management at ALM refused, and on the 18 August a second data file was posted on the dark web, containing 9.7GB of personal details of Ashley Madison customers (Bisson, 2015). This was soon made available on the open internet and searchable by any individual. 2 While the data breach in and of itself was not unique, the nature of the data exposed was significantly more sensitive. Rather than just credit card details and demographic information of victims (such as name and address), the Impact Team released information specific to a dating website, which included data on the customer’s sexuality, sexual preferences, sexual fantasies and compromising photographs. The severe personal impact of this data breach on individual victims became apparent in the weeks following the incident, whereby media reports linked this event to the suicide of a small number of victims exposed in the breach as well as an increasing number of blackmail and extortion attempts targeted at individuals within the files (BBC, 2015, Netsafe NZ, 2015). The nature of these threats was focused on the exposure of individuals to their family, friends, work colleagues and others. The reporting of the Ashley Madison data breach provides an interesting case study on how these incidents are reported in the mainstream print news media. In contrast to the many previous companies and victims affected by a data breach, the focus of this incident was very different. Given that Ashley Madison is known for its adulterous nature, the focus of this incident appeared to rest squarely on the victims themselves. This was not for the reason that they had experienced a large breach of privacy and security of their personal details, rather the focus was fixed on the adulterous nature of the website and being labelled a “cheat” and morally corrupt. However, it is important to note that having an email address associated with the website was not necessarily an indication that a person had actually subscribed. Ashley Madison did not attempt to verify the email addresses of any account holders, and therefore a person could subscribe with any given email address. The inability to confirm if those who were exposed had genuinely subscribed to the website was largely ignored in the media coverage surrounding this incident. As will be demonstrated, guilt was implied firstly by association to the website, and second, of the perceived actions taken on the website (namely cheating). 3 On one hand, it is not surprising that this data breach received such substantial media attention, based on the nature of the Ashley Madison website. Media outlets cover a variety of scandals, with ‘sex scandals possess[ing] particular appeal’ (Lonie and Toffoletti, 2012). Such scandals are commonplace and derive great public interest as well as defining various moral narratives (see Gamson, 2001 for an example of this related to public figures and prostitution). Thompson (1997: 39) argues that scandals involve the contravention of “certain values, norms or moral codes”. In this instance, the focus of the Ashley Madison data breach was squarely centred on the adulterous nature of the website and the breach of sensitive, personal information appeared to of secondary concern (if at all). However, this article challenges this focus and highlights the consequences of this narrative. Consequently, this article examines one of the victim discourses that accompanied the Ashley Madison data breach. Through an analysis of the print news media across two countries (Australia and Canada), this article presents evidence of how a victim blaming discourse operated in the aftermath of the incident. It also presents a second somewhat contrasting discourse, which sought to refocus attention from the perceived guilt and immorality of the victims, onto the actual offenders who perpetrated such criminal activity. However, it will be argued that there was still an inherent tension in this second narrative, which still subscribed to a level of victim blaming, albeit in a much more subtle way. Drawing from Christie’s (1986) concept of the ideal victim, this article will highlight how the Ashley Madison case is an example of victim blaming. The media play a prominent role in shaping and influencing the ideas of members of society and the attitudes and perceptions they hold on certain issues (Croteau and Hoynes, 2014). On this basis, overall this article will demonstrate that the victim blaming discourse across print news media was prominent based on the perceived immorality of the website that individuals were connected to, rather than focusing on the data breach itself, or the blatant criminality of the offenders 4 who had exposed the sensitive information. The implications arising from these two discourses on those exposed and on society as a whole will then be discussed. Data breaches In a world where business, communication, and everyday life are increasingly conducted in an online environment (through cloud computing, the internet of things to name a few), it is inevitable that possibilities have arisen for new criminal opportunities. Across society, there is a push towards the collection of endless amounts of information and as a consequence, society is driven and consumed by ‘big data’ (Kitchin, 2014). This has led to tensions and strong debates on the threat posed by big data to the privacy and security of both individuals and businesses and the ability and need to put adequate measures in place to protect it. Cybersecurity has emerged as one of the biggest threats and challenges in today’s society, and there appear to be endless ways in which motivated offenders can target this information.
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