Email is increasingly becoming an essential tool for us. Not only at the work level, but we also use it a lot in our private lives. In addition, to this we must add that correspondence by letter on paper is less and less. This has caused that in our e-mails we have banking information, payment of receipts and more. Cybercriminals are no strangers to this new reality, and they seek to hack into our email accounts to make a profit. One of the problems is that, even if we do not realize it, they can spy on our finances, work life and work. Today we are going to show you how to check if your email and password are among the millions of filtered on the Internet, and what measures we should take if you have been exposed.
How the tools to check for data leakage work
Currently there are a large number of tools to check if our email has been leaked, both recent and old leaks. The different tools use the filtered databases to check if our email is in them, and if they are, it will notify us that a data leak has occurred. We must bear in mind that these databases can have a size of terabytes of data, since millions of emails are stored with their corresponding password hashes.
As for what cybercriminals could do thanks to hacking our e-mail, there are several things. For starters, they could steal your email address and take possession of it if they are interested. They could also obtain our credit card number and company data if we use it for work. Another possibility is that our data ends up being sold on the dark web to the highest bidder. For this reason, it is always necessary to use different passwords for the different services, in case a service is affected by a data leak, the rest of the services are not affected.
On the other hand, we have the question of what could happen to us if our data is leaked. In this case, your other accounts could be stolen. This is because, for example, we use e-mail accounts to register on other sites. It could also try to do a phishing attack on you or start getting a lot of spam in your email. Then, in very complex cases, they could steal your identity or ruin your finances. In addition, cybercriminals could send messages with phishing attacks to your personal or work environment. This could have serious consequences resulting in a loss of reputation.
How to check if your email and password has been leaked
The first thing we have to do to be able to use the tool that checks if we have data leaks in our e-mail is to go to the followingweb page . We find a free web tool. This means:
- That we will not have to pay to use it.
- We will need an Internet connection to use it.
- It will not require installation, since its execution is carried out in our Internet browser.
By clicking on the link that we have put before, our browser will load a screen like this:
To check if the email and password are among the millions leaked, we have to type the email address in the search field. In this case, we refer to the white area indicated by the red arrow and which says ” enter your email “. One positive thing is that, Cybernews claims that the email we enter is not saved, recorded or stored anywhere.
All we have to do to check our e-mail is to type it in the search bar and click on the CHECK NOW button. Next, we are going to give an example with an email that has been exposed and another that has not. We will also explain how you should act in each case.
What if your email is not on the filtered list
If we follow the instructions in the previous section, putting an e-mail and pressing the CHECK NOW button we get some results. In case they are not filtered, a screen like this will appear:
Here they tell us that they have not found the email among those that have been filtered. That means that, relatively, we can be calm and if we wanted we could leave it at this point. However, if we want to improve security, it recommends that we take two actions:
- That we use a trusted password manager to generate strong passwords and keep them protected.
- The use of two-factor authentication (2FA) whenever possible.
How to act after checking that your email and password have been leaked
We are going to repeat the same mechanics as before. We enter our e-mail and press the CHECK NOW button. Assuming that your email and password are among the millions filtered, it will give these results:
In a message in a red text, he tells us that our mail is among those that have been filtered. Next, he offers us a series of tips. In this case, it is already mandatory that we remedy because our email account is at risk. What is most recommended is to follow the following steps:
- Change Password.
- Set a strong password and use a password manager.
- Enable 2FA two-factor authentication for that account and others that may be linked to the one that has been leaked.
The recommended minimum in this case would be to change the password for a robust one, and review the other accounts that may have a link to that filtered account. However, the more actions we take, the better.
Password generator to have a strong key
If we want to build a good password, which is robust, it must be built with uppercase, lowercase, numbers, symbols and a recommended minimum length of 12 characters. We can also use free password managers to help us keep them safe. Some examples could be KeePass, Bitwarden, Dashlane, LastPass, and Passwarden. As for this same website, if you want me to generate a strong password, you can do so by clicking on this link . Then the password generator screen will appear.
The way it works is very simple. As soon as we click on the symbol indicated by the red arrow, a password will be automatically generated. Next, all we have to do is click on the Copy Password button to save it to the clipboard. Then by entering control + v we can paste it where necessary.
Finally, how you have been able to observe, this website offers us two interesting free tools. One to check if your email and password are among the millions leaked and another to generate strong passwords.
