Have I Been Pwned?

Have I Been Pwned?

HIBP's logo is prefixed with a common SQL injection attack string
Web address haveibeenpwned.com
Commercial No
Type of site
 Internet security
Registration Optional
Owner Troy Hunt
Launched 4 December 2013 (2013-12-04)
Alexa rank
 Decrease 72,518 (Global 4/2016)

Have I Been Pwned? (HIBP) is a website that allows internet users to check if their personal data has been compromised by data breaches. The service collects and analyzes dozens of database dumps and pastes containing information about hundreds of millions of leaked accounts, and allows users to search for their own information by entering their username or email address. Users can also sign up to be notified if their email address appears in future dumps. The site has been widely touted as a valuable resource for internet users wishing to protect their own security and privacy.[1][2] Have I Been Pwned? is run by security expert Troy Hunt.

As of March 2016, Have I Been Pwned? receives around ten thousand daily visitors and has 350 thousand email subscribers.[3]

History

Troy Hunt, the creator of Have I Been Pwned?

Have I Been Pwned? was launched by Australian web security expert Troy Hunt on 4 December 2013. Hunt was inspired to create the site while analyzing data breach trends, as he realized breaches could greatly impact users who might not even be aware their data was compromised. "Probably the main catalyst was Adobe," said Hunt of his motivation for starting the site, referring to the Adobe Systems security breach that affected 153 million accounts in October 2013.[3]

In July 2015, following the Ashley Madison data breach, Hunt added functionality by which breaches considered "sensitive" would not be publicly searchable, and would only be revealed to subscribers of the email alert system. This functionality was enabled for the Ashley Madison data, as well as for data from other potentially scandalous sites, such as AdultFriendFinder.[2]

In November 2015, electronic toy maker VTech was hacked, and an anonymous source privately provided a database containing nearly five million parents' records to HIBP. According to Hunt, this was the fourth largest consumer privacy breach to date.[4]

See also

References

  1. ↑ Seltzer, Larry (5 December 2013). "How to find out if your password has been stolen". ZDNet. Retrieved 18 March 2016.
  2. 1 2 Price, Rob (20 August 2015). "HaveIBeenPwned.com lets you see if you're in the Ashley Madison hack leak". Business Insider. Retrieved 18 March 2016.
  3. 1 2 Coz, Joseph (10 March 2016). "The Rise of ‘Have I Been Pwned?’, an Invaluable Resource in the Hacking Age". Vice. Retrieved 18 March 2016.
  4. ↑ Franceschi-Bicchierai, Lorenzo (27 November 2015). "One of the Largest Hacks Yet Exposes Data on Hundreds of Thousands of Kids". Vice. Retrieved 31 March 2016.

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Have I Been Pwned?.
This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the Sunday, April 17, 2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.