If you want to know if your email address has been compromised in one of the large scale data breaches that you see in the news, then this website will check for you.
The guy who created this website is Troy Hunt, a Microsoft Regional Director who is well known and highly regarded in the Internet security world.
- Why did Troy build the site?
- Troy says “This site provides a service to the public. Data breaches are rampant and people don’t appreciate the scale or frequency with which they occur. By aggregating the data here, I hope that it not only helps victims learn of compromises of their accounts, but also highlights the severity of the risks of online attacks on today’s Internet”.
A “breach” is an incident where a hacker illegally obtains data from a vulnerable system, usually by exploiting weaknesses in the software. All of the data in the haveibeenpwned website comes from website breaches which have been made publicly available.
There’s an option on the site to sign up to be notified if your email address comes up in a later breach.
- What to do if your email details have been compromised?
- This doesn’t necessarily mean that someone has your password but you should check and take precautions.
- Change the password for the account
- Change the password for any other account that has the same password
- Review whether to shut down the relevant accounts and whether there has been any suspicious activity on those accounts ( if there is money involved).
You should always use strong passwords so if you have any less than strong passwords do update them on all relevant accounts.