For local startup Trustify, the Ashley Madison hack is good business

On Tuesday and Thursday nights, hackers unloaded about 30 gigabytes of data on the two-timing users of cheating website Ashley Madison.
This was bad news for tryst seekers, but good news for Trustify, a barely 6-month-old startup that links users with local gumshoes. We wrote about the “Uber for private investigators” in June.
“Business is booming,” Trustify spokeswoman Cathryn Marcuse told Technical.ly DC.
In the past, the company had often been approached by people who suspected their significant other of cheating on them online. “We couldn’t answer that question for customers, because we’re not hackers,” said Marcuse. “And we weren’t going to cross those lines.”
But after hackers published the trove of Ashley Madison data, Trustify pounced on the sleuthing opportunity.
“Our developers and engineers worked through the night,” said Marcuse.
Wednesday morning, Trustify had come out with a free web app that matches email addresses against the leaked Ashley Madison profiles through a third-party source.
The app has already fielded over 1 million searches.
Trustify is also creating more detailed — and costlier, at $199 a pop — reports that include information on the sexual proclivities, credit card information and even IP addresses of Ashley Madison users.
This type of evidence has more incriminating potential than email addresses, which can be created anonymously or under a fake name. “The credit card information is really the smoking gun,” said Marcuse.
Marcuse stressed the fact that Trustify only conducts searches for its clients, who have fallen on both sides of the cheating dramas.
“We’re not trying to out people,” she said. “This is all about providing access to proof and giving peace of mind.”
But there is no denying that the data could land lots of people in hot water.
Trustify has been approached by employers — including a D.C.-area media company — as well as ex-spouses, Marcuse said.
Good luck with those divorce proceedings, folks!