Cheating website included White House, security officials
WASHINGTON—Hundreds of US government employees, including some with sensitive jobs in the White House, Congress and law enforcement agencies, used Internet connections in their federal offices to access and pay membership fees to the cheating website Ashley Madison, The Associated Press has learned.
The AP traced many of the accounts exposed by hackers back to federal workers. They included at least two assistant US attorneys; an information technology administrator in the Executive Office of the President; a division chief, an investigator and a trial attorney in the Justice Department; a government hacker at the Department of Homeland Security and another DHS employee who indicated he worked on a US counterterrorism response team.
The AP is not naming the government subscribers it found because they are not elected officials or accused of a crime.
Hackers this week released detailed records on millions of people registered with the website one month after the break-in at Ashley Madison’s parent company, Torontobased Avid Life Media Inc. The website, whose slogan is “Life is short. Have an affair,” is marketed to facilitate extramarital affairs.
Many federal customers appeared to use nongovernment e-mail addresses with handles such as “sexlessmarriage,” “soontobesingle” or “latinlovers.”
Defense Secretary Ash Carter confirmed the Pentagon was looking into the list of people who used military e-mail. Adultery can be a criminal offense under the Uniform Code of Military Justice.
A White House spokesperson said on Thursday he could not immediately comment on the matter.