Estimated read time: 1-2 minutes
This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.
CEDAR CITY — Utah authorities are investigating a website that allegedly published the personal information of southern Utah residents who registered on the Ashley Madison website.
According to four search warrants unsealed this week in 3rd District Court, a Facebook page and a website called AM Southern Utah "disclosed customers' names, physical address(es) and email addresses for the southern Utah area." The information allegedly came from the 2015 hack of Ashley Madison, a website that helps enable extramarital affairs.
The website allegedly got 20,000 views before it was taken offline, and later returned as amsouthernutah2.com, according to the warrants.
Investigators from the Utah State Bureau of Investigations allegedly traced the website to a southern Utah man. The man's Twitter profile picture shows a man wearing a baseball cap with the words "blackhat," according to the warrant.
"The term blackhat commonly refers to a computer hacker involved in nefarious activities," the warrant states.
No one has been arrested and no charges had been filed as of Wednesday. The investigator who wrote the search warrant affidavit noted that he believes the man they're investigating gains unauthorized access to computer data and discloses it "and thereby causes damage to another. The damage in this case was to the reputation of the individuals whose information was listed on amsouthernutah.com."
The State Bureau of Investigations released a small prepared statement Wednesday when asked about the investigation by the Deseret News.
"Our cyber unit has an investigation in southern Utah related to the Ashley Madison hack. It is not an investigation looking into the actual website. Because it is currently an active investigation we are not able to provide more details at this time."
