New Site: Have I Been Pwned?

Computer security specialist Graham Cluley tips us to a website that has compiled the jillions of email addresses recently exposed when hackers obtained the membership accounts of popular websites.

Enter sites like “Have i been pwned?”, created by computer scientist Troy Hunt. Have I Been Pwned makes it easy for you to search for your email address amongst the hundreds of millions of accounts exposed, following breaches at Adobe, Gawker, Yahoo and others. It’s important to realise that Have I Been Pwned *doesn’t* have a database of your passwords. Troy isn’t interested in your passwords (or the hassle of securing them). He just wants to make it easier for folks to tell if they were one of those who were affected, and where they might have accounts which are at risk. Right now, Troy’s project is limited to scanning the exposed databases of Adobe, Stratfor, Gawker, Yahoo and Sony to see if a particular email address is contained within. Clearly, the more that list grows the more useful his service will be. But as more stolen user databases are publicly disclosed and made known to him, Troy says he plans to add to the list. I can certainly imagine this becoming a useful free service for people who may have fallen victim through no fault of their own.

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Computer security specialist Graham Cluley tips us to a website that has compiled the jillions of email addresses recently exposed when hackers obtained the membership accounts of popular websites.

Enter sites like “Have i been pwned?”, created by computer scientist Troy Hunt. Have I Been Pwned makes it easy for you to search for your email address amongst the hundreds of millions of accounts exposed, following breaches at Adobe, Gawker, Yahoo and others. It’s important to realise that Have I Been Pwned *doesn’t* have a database of your passwords. Troy isn’t interested in your passwords (or the hassle of securing them). He just wants to make it easier for folks to tell if they were one of those who were affected, and where they might have accounts which are at risk. Right now, Troy’s project is limited to scanning the exposed databases of Adobe, Stratfor, Gawker, Yahoo and Sony to see if a particular email address is contained within. Clearly, the more that list grows the more useful his service will be. But as more stolen user databases are publicly disclosed and made known to him, Troy says he plans to add to the list. I can certainly imagine this becoming a useful free service for people who may have fallen victim through no fault of their own.

Check your accounts here.

Posted in: computers,hacking,internet