Ashley Madison hack fallout: Queensland love rats exposed

A COUNCILLOR, police, paramedics and a host of other government officials have been outed as alleged Queensland love rats.

Romance

A COUNCILLOR, police, paramedics and a host of other government officials have been outed as alleged Queensland love rats.

Investigations were last night launched into how the public servants’ email addresses became associated with the Ashley Madison adultery website.

More than 700 Australian Government officials’ emails, including almost 50 from Queensland, were among 30 million members details claimed to have been hacked from the site and published online.

State Government departments, councils and police have all promised to investigate the emails and whether Government equipment was misused to access the website.

Brisbane, Cairns, Redland, Moreton Bay, Bundaberg and Sunshine Coast local council email addresses were among the leaked details.

A southeast Queensland councillor says he did not know how his council email account ended up on the list.

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“I’m mystified, to be honest. I did a quick check of all my old emails and my deleted emails,” he said.

The councillor said because of government firewalls it would not be “convenient or sensible” to use a council email address to use such a website.

“I think there’s various degrees of whether this fits in the public interest,” he said. “I’m a single person.”

Millions of cheaters have been left to sweat over whether their indiscretions will be revealed.

Brisbane had the world’s 14th highest number of accounts, with more than 118,000, according to claims on one website.

Sydney was third on the global list with more than 250,000 accounts and Melbourne sixth with 213,000.

While Ashley Madison confirmed a hack took place, it has not authenticated any of the published emails.

Computer security experts say that while the information looks legitimate, false emails can be used or hijacked without the real owner’s knowledge.

The State Government’s chief information officer is looking into the claims, while police said they had “strict policies in place” for work emails and internet use.

“Any allegations of misuse of the internet or QPS email system would be reviewed on a case-by-case basis and management or disciplinary action taken as necessary,” a police spokeswoman said.

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Brisbane, Redland and Cairns councils have all launched investigations after email addresses of their employees were published.

A Moreton Bay Regional Council spokesman said the only email linked to its council belonged to a former employee who had not worked for them in more than a year.

Emails from the defence and education departments feature heavily on the hacked list.

Nationally dozens of police email addresses were found.

There’s speculation further details could emerge such as fantasies, height, weight and even GPS co-ordinates.

A website has sprung up which allows people to search email addresses if they are concerned they or their partner were linked to the adultery website.