Have You Been pwned?
Last updated: 3.50pm, Thursday 17th January 2019
The biggest ever collection of breached data including more than a billion email addresses and passwords has just been posted online to a hacking forum. Of course, the question everyone will be asking is "how do I know if I'm on there?" Here's how...
The 87GB dump of data hidden on a hacker forum appears to be, at least partly, an aggregation of many previous data hacks and has been dubbed 'Collection #1'. Users from around the world are believed to be affected as the mammoth collection of once private data is thought to be being used by hackers in a method called 'credential stuffing'. This is where automated bots repeatedly test millions of email and password combinations from known data on a variety of sites.
Troy Hunt, a Microsoft Regional Director has created a web site as a free resource for anyone to quickly assess if they may have been put at risk due to one of their online accounts having been compromised or "pwned" in a data breach.
You can visit the site using this link: https://haveibeenpwned.com