Every day we hear about yet another attack on some part of the net or another, whether it’s huge breaches like the one at Adobe last year, or smaller attacks on shopping sites. The result each time is a little bit more information goes into the cracker database, a username here, a password there. Now you can find out whether your details have been breached, and if so where.
Have I Been Pwned? is a massive free online database of breaches around the world, containing the details of what’s been grabbed where. Just visit here and enter in your email address or favorite usernames, and the site will tell you if and where your details have been compromised. Once you know this, you can take remedial action to change passwords, and/or stop using that sign on.
The database also gives you the exact details of what was compromised (e.g. passwords, usernames etc), so you know how serious the breach was, and if you want you can leave your email with the service so they’ll alert you should your details be compromised any time in the future.
It’s a neat service, and should help people at least get a handle on whether they’re at risk with a broken login set, and that’s half the battle. Now if only some recently hacked celebrities had used the service, they might have found out before it was too late.
