TVB news director Keith Yuen Chi-wai has spoken out after his email address was found among Ashley Madison’s hacked user database.
The accusations came after hackers published user information stolen from the Ashley Madison, a dating website marketed towards married individuals, on Wednesday. HKFP found hundreds of emails ending with “.com.hk.” At least one user used a “.gov.hk” email address.
Netizens spotted an email address ending with “tvb.com.hk” and beginning with “Yuen,” sparking speculation that the address belonged to the news director, Apple Daily reported.
Yuen admitted that it was his company email address, but emphasised that he had never been on the website and had no idea why his email address would appear in the database.
“My female secretary sees [my work emails] every day… Do you think I’ll be that dumb?” Yuen told the newspaper.
He said that ever since his email address and phone number were posted on the popular HK Golden forum after the pro-democracy Occupy movement last year, he has received a lot of unwanted emails.
Yuen came under fire in 2014 when seven TVB journalists resigned in apparent discontent over his editorial decisions. The resignations came after the news station removed references to an alleged attack by the police in October during the Occupy protests. The footage appeared to show seven policemen hitting Civic Party member Ken Tsang Kin-chiu.
Other email addresses in the user database allegedly belonged to individuals from a number of governmental departments, such as the Leisure and Cultural Services Department, the Social Welfare Department, Electrical and Mechanical Services and LegCo, according to a report in Oriental Daily.
The hackers, who call themselves the Impact Team, asked Avid Life Media—which runs Ashley Madison and companion site Established Men—to shut down its websites in July. The group threatened to release user data if the company did not comply.
Following Wednesday’s publication of Ashley Madison’s user database, the hackers revealed another 20 gigabytes of data on Friday, this time containing information such as the correspondence of Avid Life Media CEO Noel Biderman, it was reported.
