Web User - UK (2019-11-13)

Stop leaking your identity

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13 - 26 November 2019 41

Thesitecanalsocheckif any

passwordsyouuseappearontheweb.

Havesomefunbyenteringsome

common(andeasytoguess)passwords

toseehowoftenthey’vebeenleaked–

‘password’,forexample,hasappeared

in databreaches3.7million

times,while‘123456’cropsupa

whopping23.5milliontimes.

SeeourMiniWorkshoponpage

42 tofindouthowtomakethe

mostofHaveI BeenPwned.

FirefoxMonitor(monitor

.firefox.com) is a similartool

thatcheckstoseeif youremail

addresshasbeencompromised

andgivesdetailsregardingthe

breachesthataffectyou.If you

useFirefox,you’llreceivea

HAVE YOUR PASSWORDS BEEN STOLEN?

notificationwhenyouvisita

sitethat’sbeenbreached.

Monitormultipleonline

accountsforleaks

Unlikemanyleakcheckers,

SpybotIdentityMonitor

(bit.ly/spybotid488) is a

downloadabletool.Settingit

upis simple– justclickMy

Accounts,thenclickthe

buttonsatthetoptoaddas

manyemailaddressesand

usernamesasyoulike.It

monitorsyourdetailsagainsttheHaveI

BeenPwneddatabasebutdeliversits

resultsin onesimpleinterface,rather

thanyouhavingtocheckeachaccount

individuallybyenteringthedetailson

theHaveI BeenPwnedwebsite.

Findoutif youremail

addresshasleaked

AvastHackCheck(www.avast.com/

hackcheck) is a verythoroughtoolthat

letsyoudiscoverwhich,if any,ofyour

passwordshavebeenstolen.Enteryour

emailaddress,clickCheckNowandthe

sitewill

emailyou

a linkto

your

personal

report,

whichwill

showyou

allthe

instances

whereyour

email

address

waspurportedlyfoundonthedarkweb,

alongside any accompanying

passwords. Hack Check will also alert

you every time your email address and

passwords leak in the future.

E

veryone knows it’s important to

follow proper password etiquette

and use unique and difficult-to-

guess logins on every site you visit on

the web. A combination of letters,

numbers and symbols – rather than

dictionary words or the names of family

members or pets – should mean that

attackers won’t be able to easily crack

your passwords.

The problem is that websites are

hacked almost every day and passwords

are leaked or stolen through no fault

of the user. When that happens, the

affected site should inform you and

advise you to change your login

details. However, sites often aren’t as

forthcoming as they should be, and they

might not even discover the break-in for

months, or even years, after it happens.

For this reason, it pays to change your

password regularly – just in case – and

use some of the many tools available

that check whether your online accounts

have been compromised, or are likely to

be. Here’s our pick of the best.

Check if your accounts

have been breached

Have I Been Pwned (haveibeenpwned

.com) is probably the best known

privacy-leak checker and can tell you

instantly if your email address was

exposed in a breach and when that

breach occurred. It also notifies

you when your email account is

compromised by future breaches.

Thedarkwebis a collection

of websites on an encrypted

network that can only be

accessed using the Tor Browser

(www.torproject.org/

download). It’s home to lots of

criminal activity – you can buy

drugs, guns and counterfeit

currency, as well as credit card

numbers, stolen subscriptions,

bank logins and usernames and passwords.

Dark websites look similar to regular sites, but they’re harder to find (regular

search engines don’t index them) and end in ‘.onion’, rather than ‘.com’ or

‘.co.uk’. However, some companies claim they can scan the dark web and alert

you if your personal information is found there. The trouble is that free scans

don’t usually reveal much, and many companies offering ‘dark web scans’

require you to sign up for a paid-for service. The truth is that the dark web is

• by its very nature – very hard to scan, and most if not all of these services
  are probably just checking to see if your details appear on regular security
  sites such as Have I Been Pwned (see above). If your personal data was leaked
  in a breach, you can pretty much guarantee it will be somewhere on the dark
  web and, infuriatingly, you won’t be able to remove it.

IS YOUR DATA BEING SOLD ON THE DARK WEB?

Use Have I Been Pwned to

check if your email address has

been compromised

Avast Hack Check tells you

if your passwords have

been stolen by hackers

Spybot Identity Monitor lets you check the

security of multiple accounts