Unless you’ve been living in a cave these last few days, you’d know that hackers have released the compromised database of extra-marital affairs site Ashley Madison online.

The exact number of members listed in the database itself isn’t precisely clear, but it is believed the number is somewhere in the vicinity of 30-40 million people.

Originally released on the Darkweb before hitting BitTorrent sites such as The Pirate Bay, the Ashley Madison hack database was only available to download and it was a whopper of a download at that, coming in at 9GB, not exactly a quick database a typical person could grab then easily search.

This being 2015, however, there are no shortage of innovative people who are able to take a package like the Ashley Madison leaked database and make it accessible via easy-to-use search tools.

While sites currently available restrict searches to email addresses, if you’re looking to see if a loved one or work colleague was having, or looking to have an affair, and you know their email address, a number of sites are merely a click away to allow you to do so.

Here’s how you can search the Ashley Madison hacked/leaked database online.

ashley.cynic.al/

A service from the same guy who delivered the Adobe leaked password checker in 2013, this is probably the easiest of the sites available to check to see whether an email address was featured in the Ashley Madison leaked database.

To use, simply plonk an email address in the search field and hit search, and the site will tell you if the email address is in the database.

Have I Been Pwned

A site of long standing that allows users to subscribe for free and be notified if their email address appears in hacked databases, Have I Been Pwned is now covering the Ashley Madison hack.

However, only users who have signed up, and confirmed their email address with the site are able to check to see whether they were a victim of the Ashley Madison hacked database due to what the site describes as “the sensitivity of the data.”

Trustify

A simple-to-use service that like ashley.cynic.al/ allows you to simply plonk in an email address to search the Ashley Madison leaked database for a match.

If none of these sites work for you, or you want to search the Ashley Madison hacked database by name, currently the only method we are aware of is to download the full database; note that if you go down this path that downloading stolen data may be illegal in your local jurisdiction or country, so practice safe internet and use a VPN or a proxy to cover your IP address.

Image credit: pleuntje/Flickr/CC by 2.0