As our lives go digital, data breaches and hacks have become a part of our lives. In many past incidents, we've seen hackers compromise security and leak information online.
Now, a security expert has rolled out a new service that tells you if your account has been compromised. Troy Hunt's 'Have I been pwned' website tells you if an email address has been a part of the data breach or their passwords are among the ones breached.
You can check if your email address has been a part of data breaches off late by visiting https://haveibeenpwned.com/. For instance, take a look at the screenshot below:
He has also released 306 million previously hacked passwords. "The entire collection of 306 million hashed passwords can be directly downloaded from the Pwned Passwords page. It's a single 7-Zip file that's 5.3GB which you can then download and extract into whatever data structure you want to work with (it's 11.9GB once expanded)," Hunt wrote in a blogpost.
In the Pwned passwords section, you can enter some of your old passwords to know if they were ever involved in a breach. In case, they have been appearing, then it’s time to realise that you need a stronger password. Check this out:
However, do not test passwords that you are currently using. Also, we wouldn't recommend using such similar sites to check passwords
"It goes without saying (although I say it anyway on that page), but don't enter a password you currently use into any third-party service like this! I don't explicitly log them and I'm a trustworthy guy but yeah, don't. The point of the web-based service is so that people who have been guilty of using sloppy passwords have a means of independent verification," Hunt explains.