If you’ve used LinkedIn, Gmail, DropBox, Hotmail, and/or Adobe in recent years, you’ve been made to change your passwords for these sites – and for good reason. Almost everyone has been affected by a site/server breach, and any personal information captured on those sites (e.g. email or civic addresses, birthdate, etc.) can be released or used by hackers, and puts you at risk for a Ransomware or Cyber Fraud attack.
Companies are generally quick to recognize a breach, recapture that data, and instruct all of its users to change their passwords after they’ve re-secured their site. How can you determine whether your credentials have been compromised? Visit “Have I Been Pwned” (https://haveibeenpwned.com/) and type in your email. Created and maintained by a Microsoft Security Developer, this site will let you know if your account has been compromised in a data breach, and there is a need to change the password for the indicated website. Law firms and businesses can also do a domain search, to track which email addresses using a certain domain name have been seized in any of the known data breaches.
Users can also register to receive free email notifications for if (or when) their account is compromised.