Hackers who swiped the information of millions of registered members of Ashley Madison — a dating site for cheaters — made good on their promise to release the data dump, and it includes a Washington spin.
Among the 36 million records released are more than 15,019 email accounts from .mil or .gov. Army addresses comprised the largest number of military addresses, at 6,788, while the Air Force only had 127 addresses on the list.
The government agency with the most users? Veterans Affairs.
The .gov extension includes address with federal agencies, state governments and foreign governments. A check of a sampling of addresses by PJM showed many addresses at federal government agencies that matched names of staffers there, and some that appeared fake.
An online listing of the .gov addresses revealed a handful using a mail.house.gov email, including one House communications director and a staffer at the office of the Chief Administrative Officer.
There were three Senate addresses: three Capitol Police, one at the office of the Sergeant at Arms, and one from the office of Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas). It was the general press email of his office.
“The email address in question is [email protected], a publicly and widely available forwarding address that is often entered into web contact forms by people with no connection to our office,” a Cruz aide told Roll Call.
The hackers said in a statement released with the data that they’ve “explained the fraud, deceit, and stupidity of ALM and their members. Now everyone gets to see their data.”
“Find someone you know in here? Keep in mind the site is a scam with thousands of fake female profiles. See ashley madison fake profile lawsuit; 90-95% of actual users are male. Chances are your man signed up on the world’s biggest affair site, but never had one. He just tried to. If that distinction matters,” the statement continued. “Find yourself in here? It was ALM that failed you and lied to you. Prosecute them and claim damages. Then move on with your life. Learn your lesson and make amends. Embarrassing now, but you’ll get over it.”
Ashley Madison, a Canadian company, said in a press release that the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, the Ontario Provincial Police, the Toronto Police Services and the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation are investigating the hack.
“This event is not an act of hacktivism, it is an act of criminality. It is an illegal action against the individual members of AshleyMadison.com, as well as any freethinking people who choose to engage in fully lawful online activities. The criminal, or criminals, involved in this act have appointed themselves as the moral judge, juror, and executioner, seeing fit to impose a personal notion of virtue on all of society,” the company said. “We will not sit idly by and allow these thieves to force their personal ideology on citizens around the world. We are continuing to fully cooperate with law enforcement to seek to hold the guilty parties accountable to the strictest measures of the law.”
Users on imageboard website 4chan were breaking down the data dump into more digestible, searchable information, such as a British government list.
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