TORONTO _ Cheating spouses who fear their secret online liaisons could be revealed in the Ashley Madison data breach faced a tough lesson this week about flirting with danger on the Internet.
But experts say getting people to change their wicked ways won't necessarily be as simple as threatening to divulge past indiscretions.
Whether it's a steamy conversation on Facebook with a high-school flame or a random encounter at the bar, extramarital flings are hardly a new phenomenon.
``People have been having extramarital affairs for long before the Internet facilitated those liaisons,'' said Matthew Johnson, a relationship specialist in human ecology at the University of Alberta.
``Infidelity is not going to stop because people are all of the sudden scared their personal information is going to leak on a website.''
Still, questions about the fallout of the breach linger as Toronto-based website AshleyMadison.com reels from a cyberattack where hackers stole confidential details about its cheating customers and threatened to post them online.
Dr. Daniel Dresner told the BBC news service that the attack could be "an inside job."
It certainly isn't the first time data has been stolen in recent years.
Government websites have temporarily shut down to prevent hackers from stealing information, while companies like Sony and Target Corp. have taken major financial hits from massive customer and employee data breaches.
What makes the security breach at Ashley Madison different is that it literally hits home for many people and could have irreversible consequences for their marriages or long-term relationships.
Professor David Skillicorn, who specializes in computers and hacking at Queen's University, said the breach also reveals the extent to which people are willing to take risks and reveal intimate details online without thinking about the repercussions.
Ashley Madison claimed to have 37 million international members before the security breach.
``This didn't seem to raise flags with those people, so I think that's a commentary on how much the culture has still not taken onboard the issues of Internet security,'' Skillicorn said.