New data reveals the Ashley Madison hack actually caused people to use the cheating app more

This summer when the dating site for cheaters Ashley Madison was hacked, it seemed like the end for the company.

The personal data of millions of users was spewed onto the internet, and the media firestorm that followed caused CEO Noel Biderman to resign.

But even in the midst of the craziness, Ashley Madison always claimed it was still seeing user growth. In fact, just two weeks after the leak, Ashley Madison claimed it was seeing hundreds of thousands of new users sign up.

Now new data from AVG suggests that the hack could have spurred more people who had installed the app to actually use it. Looking at Android user data going back to to the beginning of 2015, it seems that the leak reversed Ashley Madison's waning user interest, and that the numbers are climbing back toward what they were before the hack.

Here is a chart of AVG's data:

According to AVG, only about 5% of people who had the app installed during the hack were actually using it. But in the third quarter of 2015, that number was back up to 15%.

And AVG found that, in fact, the entire category of cheating apps seems to be gaining momentum. Ashley Madison competitor MiuMeet saw a 23% usage bump in the aftermath of the hack, while another competitor, AnastasiaDate, went from 11% to 60% in October.

Read the full AVG report here.

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