How to Check if Your Email and Password Have Been Leaked in a Data Breach

In our digital world, data breaches are no longer a rare occurrence; they are a routine part of online life. Huge companies, from social media giants to major retailers, are targeted by hackers every day. When they are breached, the user data they hold—including your email address, usernames, and passwords—is often stolen and posted on the dark web.

You might not even know that your login credentials for an old, forgotten website have been exposed, but hackers will use that same email and password combination to try to break into your more important accounts, like your email or your bank.

Finding out if your information has been compromised is the first critical step to protecting yourself. Luckily, there are excellent, free tools that make it easy. Here’s how to check if you’ve been part of a data breach and what to do about it.

The Best Tool for the Job: “Have I Been Pwned?”

Created by security researcher Troy Hunt, “Have I Been Pwned?” (haveibeenpwned.com) is the most trusted and comprehensive public resource for checking data breach information. It is a massive, searchable database of all publicly known data breaches.

• How to Use It:
  1. Go to the website: haveibeenpwned.com
  2. In the main search box, type in your email address and click the “pwned?” button.
  3. The site will instantly search its database and tell you if that email address has been found in any known breaches. If it has, it will list exactly which company was breached and what kind of data was exposed (e.g., passwords, usernames, physical addresses).
  4. You can also click on the “Passwords” tab at the top of the site to see if a specific password you’ve used has appeared in a breach (don’t worry, the site is secure and doesn’t store what you type).

Using Your Browser’s Built-in Tools

Modern web browsers also have their own built-in security tools that can automatically warn you if a saved password has been compromised.

• For Google Chrome: Click the three-dot menu, go to Settings > Privacy and security > Security Check. This will run a check on all the passwords saved in your Google Account and alert you to any that have been found in a breach.
• For Mozilla Firefox: If you use Firefox Monitor, it will automatically notify you if your email address appears in a new data breach.

Okay, I’ve Been Breached. Now What? (A 3-Step Action Plan)

Seeing your email on a list of breached sites can be alarming, but don’t panic. The key is to act quickly and methodically.

Step 1: Immediately Change the Password on the Breached Site Go to the specific website where the breach occurred and change your password immediately. If you no longer use that site, delete your account entirely.

Step 2: Change the Password on EVERY OTHER SITE Where You Reused It This is the most critical step. Hackers will take the email/password combination from the breached site and try it everywhere else (this is called “credential stuffing”). If you reused that password for your Gmail, your bank, or your social media, you must change those passwords immediately. This is why using a unique password for every site is so important.

Step 3: Enable Two-Factor Authentication (2FA) If you haven’t already, enable 2FA on all your important accounts. 2FA requires a second code from your phone to log in, which means that even if a hacker has your password, they still can’t get into your account.

Regularly checking for breaches and practicing good password hygiene is an essential part of staying safe online. Take five minutes today to check your status—the peace of mind is well worth it.