Of the more than 15,000 .gov and .mil email addresses released in a massive data dump online of alleged Ashley Madison users, four of them belong to NCUA employees.
The email addresses of Deputy Director John Kutchey and a bank examinations coordinator were confirmed to be among the emails released in the hack. The two other NCUA email addresses allegedly released in the hack could not be confirmed.
Although the NCUA emails belong to current employees, that does not prove they had an affair or even created the profiles themselves.
Some news articles have reported that Ashley Madison did not require users to verify their email addresses; however, the website did specifically state that a valid email must be used to sign up and that users would receive emails from the company. Users could then log in to the site and opt out of receiving emails.
CU Times checked all executive level emails at the NCUA and found no others were included in the data dump. The emails were found at both Trustify and Ashley Cynic, two sites that have published the data.
Last week, hackers who called themselves Impact Team released the data they had hacked more than a month ago from Ashley Madison; the site's slogan is “Life is short. Have an affair.” The hackers threatened to post the data on the “dark web” unless Ashley Madison owner Avid Life Media took down the website and a sister website that serve as platforms for extramarital affairs.
When the hackers released the data last week, along with some credit card information, sexual fantasies, phone numbers and addresses of the users, they said some of those emails could be fake.
NCUA Public Affairs Specialist John Fairbanks said he could not comment on anything related to personnel, but said the agency is reviewing the matter.
According to the NCUA employee handbook, employees must protect and conserve federal property and not use if for unauthorized activities; must endeavor to avoid any actions creating the appearance that they are violating the law or the ethical standards set forth in this part; place ethical principles above private gain and not use public office for private gain.
The concern for many government agencies has been how to handle employees who were found to have used government equipment and work time to access the site.
Avid Life Media said it has more than 38 million users, but the hackers said many of the female profiles are actually fake to draw in more men to establish paying memberships. The hackers only released 10 gigabytes of data and said it is holding onto more emails, user photos and chat messages.
A Twitter user posted a break down of the more than 15,000 .gov and .mil emails that were released. The Department of Veterans Affairs had the most emails attached of any government agency. The Army led the military side with nearly 7,000 emails followed by more than 1,600 from the Navy, more than 800 from the Marine Corps and 127 from the Air Force.
Data hacks have been a nightmare for government and private agencies over the last two years after major hacks at retailer Target, the emails of White House employees and the data breach of more than 21.5 million current and former federal employees.
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