MAY 2021 • TECH ADVISOR 101reveal if your password has been stolen.
Many are designed to let you quickly
take action and change them.
BASIC SERVICES TO
REVEAL EMAIL BREACHES
Two reputable services to check this
information existed at the time of
the Collections breach, andstilldo:
HaveIBeenPwned (fave.co/3pbycZg),and
a service run by the Hass-Platner-Institut
(fave.co/3jCno5a) in Potsdam,Berlin.
Both ask you to enter your emailaddress
(not your password), and bothwillthen
match your email address againsta
database of known breaches.
Both services have theirappeal.
HaveIBeenPwned’s
reputation attracts those
who wish to publicize
their attacks, so the site’s
breach reporting seems
comprehensive. The site
will list the breaches that
an email address has been
caught up in, along with
any corollary information
- such as your gender or
what your phone number
is, for example. The site
organizes the breaches
by the service attacked,
not the date. Why is this
important? Because if
your email was exposed in a breach in
2016,forexample,chancesarethat
yourpasswordhas been changed since
then. But if your email and password
were exposed last month, you’ll want to
change them right away.
HaveIBeenPwned also publishes
thebreachinformationforanyemail
address,whichis handyforchecking
upon friends and family, though it isn’t
the most privacy-conscious.
HPI’s service takes a different
approach. It lists the breaches by date,
along with a matrix of what information
was exposed. If you enter an email
address on the site, it will send a security
report to that specific email, along with aHaveIBeenPwned supplies a large amount of information in
regards to breaches, but it could be better organized.