2018 was a year to remember, particularly for the billions of people whose personal data was breached or under cyberattack. Compared to 2017, January, February, and March saw a 32% increase in cyberattacks, with a 47% increase in the second quarter. In December, the Federal Trade Commission issued a public statement and guidance for up to 500 million people whose personal data was breached through Marriott International’s Starwood guest reservation database.
Not all breaches result in being personal information being publicly released. However, it’s good to know if your data has been compromised and what, if any, course of action is needed.
Have I Been Pwned is a free resource that allows you to find out if any of your online accounts have been compromised. Troy Hunt, Microsoft Regional Director, international speaker on web security and blogger, developed the site to make it easy for anyone to use.
On the site, you are able to search via your email address(es) and username(s). Be sure to conduct searches on all of them. HIBP’s search engine will find and aggregate data from data breaches and contains a subset of all publicly released records that have been breached over the years. The site, run solely through donations and Hunt’s own money, is updated time permitting.
We ran the company listserv email address ch-ls@data2know.com and found that five services, including Adobe and LinkedIn, had been compromised with our email address.
If you discover your data has been breached, check out this useful video from IndentityTheft.gov:
Like what you’re reading? Become an Hg member and learn how to maximize your online investigations with shortcuts, tips, tricks, better investigative tools, and advanced research techniques for all skill levels in our Data2Know newsletter, published eight times a year. As an added benefit, subscribers get access to our Opt Out Index containing over 200 active links to assist you in getting your private data off the Internet. From Abika to ZoomInfo, we’ve got you covered!
