Exposed: The Ashley Madison Hack
3.8/5
Critic Rating
This program contains sexual content and occasional adult language. An episode also includes mentions of suicide. Please keep that in mind when choosing when and where to listen. Millions of people–looking to cheat on their partners–signed up for Ashley Madison in the early 2000s, seeking a private space to share their public desires. The promise of discretion was shattered in the summer of 2015, when anonymous hackers stole the company’s cache of user information and published it worldwide. The result? One of the most shocking data breaches of the internet age. Overnight, millions of unfaithful spouses had their real names, addresses and sexual preferences published online in a searchable database that anyone could browse. Presented by acclaimed actress Sophie Nélisse, told through the dramatic stories of those who were caught up in the hack, and from experts who put it all into the context of our rapidly changing internet culture, Exposed: The Ashley Madison Hack serves as a cautionary tale for anyone whose secrets live in the cloud–and what happens when trust is broken both online and in the real world.
Critic Reviews
Score: 4.5
Fiona Sturges • Financial Times • Jan 28, 2024
"While you can’t fault her delivery, it’s puzzling when audio series go to the trouble of getting specialists to report the story — in this case journalist Sophie Elmhirst and producer Katy Davis — only to parachute in someone with no connection to the subject to recite the script. That aside, the story is excellent, and not just because of the element of jeopardy."
Score: 3
Miranda Sawyer • The Guardian • Jan 27, 2024
"Perfect podcast fodder....hosted by Canadian actor Sophie Nélisse, starts well. Exposed starts to run out of steam (ho ho). Plus, the script is weirdly moralistic. Perhaps this virtuous finger-wagging is because it’s a North American show, but it becomes irritating very quickly. It might seem obvious, but if this series wants us to stick around in a long-term, six-episode relationship, it needs to give us a lot more hot, sexy action. …"
