[Drew68]

I’m also sure a lot of those used their work emails to avoid snooping into their private emails.

This would be inconceivably stupid. Work email, particularly .gov email is snooped a lot closer than private email. If you don't want your private email snooped, you set up another private email address.

Email verification was never required to sign up to Ashley Madison. An email address was requested to sign up but it didn't have to be a real one. You could sign up with a fake one, or someone else's email address if you wanted.

[Cementjungle]

40 million accounts sounds like an awful lot. Many must be fakes, or duplicate accounts for the same person, or just people who were curious to see whats there. Last year our daughter got dumped by her new Bf a month after they signed a lease together. Her friend said she saw the guy's profile on match.com, so my wife created a phoney account so she could look the guy up herself and see the creep's profile.

But, I'm sure there are plenty of real accounts, and I have no sympathy for those people. Anyone in there who has a security clearance should be taken to task over it, as well as anyone in any trusted position.