MORE than 1.2million Brits have been exposed as love cheats after their personal details from hacked adultery website Ashley Madison were shared online.
Unverified accounts on the website, whose motto is “Life is short. Have an affair” are understood to include bankers, civil servants, UN peacekeepers and even Vatican employees.
The majority are believed to be male.
The files containing the names, bank details and even the “secret sexual fantasies” of members were published on the Dark Web yesterday – and experts fear they will soon appear on public websites.
Other accounts include email addresses from the British and US governments and British armed forces, as well as the Catholic church and top US universities such as Harvard and Yale.
Canada-based Ashley Madison, which boasts 37million members worldwide, suffered a major security breach in July at the hands of a cyber-criminals called The Impact Team.
The hacktivists threatened to release all the information unless owners Noel Biderman and wife Amanda, who have amassed a £500million web empire through parent company Avid Life Media, shut the site down.
But after refusing to buckle to the hackers, Ashley Madison’s entire 9.7 gigabyte customer database has been shared online — naming 1.2million Brit adulterers.
The hacking group posted online saying: “Time’s up! Avid Life Media have refused to take down Ashley Madison and Established Men. We have explained the fraud, deceit and stupidity of ALM and their members.
“Now everyone gets to see their data.
“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.”
The files are yet to be verified by Ashley Madison, but several security analysts who have scanned the data say they believe the dump is genuine.
One of them, TrustedSec CEO Dave Kennedy, said the dump included full names, passwords, street addresses, credit card information and “an extensive amount of internal data and seemed that hackers had extensive access “for a long period of time”.
Errata Security CEO Rob Graham said he had counted more than 36million accounts, although many appeared to be bogus.
Last month we revealed how Noel, 44, and Amanda, 40, believed the hack was an inside job.
Today the duo said they have been working with cyber security experts to track down the culprits.
A spokesman for the pair added: “This event is not an act of hacktivism, it is an act of criminality.
“It is an illegal action against the individual members of Ashley Madison, 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.
“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 co-operate with law enforcement to seek to hold the guilty parties accountable to the strictest measures of the law.
“Every week sees new hacks disclosed by companies large and small, and though this may now be a new societal reality, it should not lessen our outrage.
“These are illegitimate acts that have real consequences for innocent citizens who are simply going about their daily lives.
“Regardless, if it is your private pictures or your personal thoughts that have slipped into public distribution, no one has the right to pilfer and reveal that information to audiences in search of the lurid, the titillating, and the embarrassing.”
Cheating capital of the UK revealed
THE news comes as The Sun can reveal the cheating capital of the UK.
Couples in Beeston, Notts, home town of Leader of the House of Lords Baroness Stowell, top the list as most likely to stray, with 2.54 per cent of the population signing up to adultery websites.
Just over two percent (2.05) of the population in Livingston, Scotland, admit to having an affair, followed by Maidenhead, Berks, (1.84); Taunton, Somerset (1.75) and Runcorn, Cheshire (1.74).
Newcastle-under-Lyme, Staffs (1.64) beats Guildford, Surrey, (1.63) into sixth place, while Farnborough, Hants (1.61); Bracknell, Berks (1.57) and Loughborough, Leics (1.54) complete the top ten.
The figures were released in the Offical Infidelity Index 2015, and were compiled by rival adultery website Illicit Encounters, a dating website for married people and those in long-term relationships.
Want to know how your home town scored? Check out .