Ashley Madison subscriptions up by 4 million despite data theft

The affair website had 39 million users at the time of the hack

A screenshot of the Ashley Madison website showing they have 43,380,000 members (Ashley Madison)

Despite the infamous data hack that exposed millions of customers earlier this year, the infidelity matchmaking site Ashley Madison says it has 4 million more members now than it did in August.

Ashley Madison, which pairs people looking to start affairs outside of their marriages much like a dating site, had 39 million members at the time of the hack.

Today, the website’s rolling member count has reached 43,380,000.

A spokesman for Ashley Madison’s parent company, Avid Life, would not comment on the growth, according to CNN Money.

The hacking scandal revealed damning information about the company and its users; for example, the list of names appeared to show an upwards of 95 per cent male members.

There was speculation the website would eventually be ruined because of the scandal, but Avid Life dismissed the rumours, saying it was “greatly exaggerated” and people continued to use the site more than ever.

In their last statement, which was published at the end of August, they also denied reports that most of their members were men, instead claiming the ratio of active men to active women was 1.2 to 1.

Even with the surge of members, it is unclear how long Ashley Madison will stay afloat, with Avid Life facing about a dozen class-action lawsuits by unhappy customers who were exposed in the hack.

According to CNN Money, several of the lawsuits are asking for more than half a billion US dollars in damages.

Two people in Toronto reportedly killed themselves after the data theft, and a 56-year-old pastor from the New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, John Gibson, was found dead after writing a suicide note apologising for being on the site.