The email addresses and other sensitive information of 918 British MPs, members of the European Parliament, and French deputies and senators have been leaked to dark web marketplaces where data is illegally bought and sold. As part of our investigation with Constella Intelligence, we searched the dark web for 2,280 official government email addresses from the British Parliament, European Parliament, and French Parliament. We found that around 40% had been exposed, along with passwords, birth dates, and more.

British MPs fared the worst, with over two-thirds (68%) of checked email addresses appearing on the dark web, followed by nearly half (44%) of EU MEPs. French deputies and senators had the best security, with only 18% of searched emails appearing in hacker exchanges.

[...] It shows that politicians used their official email addresses to set up accounts on third-party websites (which were later hacked or suffered a breach), putting themselves and the information they’re entrusted to keep safe needlessly at risk.

Even more concerning is that these email addresses were matched with 697 passwords in plain text. [...]