What is pwned?
This is when your personal data has been compromised by a data breach i.e. when a website has been hacked and your passwords, etc. are leaked.
There’s nothing more worrying than seeing that email with a subject line or content containing one of your passwords!
What can I do?
There is a way to check if your personal data has been compromised by data breaches. You can check on Troy Hunt’s Have I Been Pwned free online resource to see if your email addresses are attached to any services that have experienced data breaches. This website checks if an account has been compromised.
If a company you have an account with has suffered a data breach it’s possible your email may have been pwned, which means your email and password for that site’s account has been exposed to cybercriminals.
We would advise that you:
- Test your work and personal email accounts to see if it has been involved in a breach.
- If so change your passwords for those accounts immediately.
- Never use the same passwords across multiple accounts – use separate passwords for each.
- As its difficult to remember passwords we would also suggest that you research different password managers that will store your passwords for you.
Visit Have I Been Pwned website to find out more.
