Chopped? Test Your Passwords | Total Security Software

New service, new Password - but has the password of your choice already fallen into the hands of Criminals during a hack? You can test it on the website haveibeenpwned.com.

Hackers regularly publish access data online. The fatal thing: All these passwords and email addresses are still circulating on the internet years later. But a security researcher has taken up the challenge and is collecting the hacked data sets.

So far, users have been able to use the website haveibeenpwned.com enter your email address and find out whether this address has appeared in connection with a hacker attack on the network. The Hasso Plattner Institute in Berlin also offers a similar service: also at Identity LeakChecker, you enter your e-mail address and the service reveals whether your e-mail address is part of a data record published on the Internet.

Compare Passwords in The Network

Now the creator of the site, Troy Hunt, has added a new feature. Here you can also compare passwords with the data published by hackers. Using a search mask, the entered password is compared with around 306 million passwords that hackers have found in various attacks. The service answers, for example, the question of whether the password "123456" appeared in connection with a hack.

Searches Not for Current, but For Future Passwords

But the maker himself says: "Nobody should type in passwords that they are currently using here." The whole thing is intended more for a look back, to check old passwords, or to get a feel for secure and insecure passwords.

Better: Download the Password List

Troy Hunt has made the list of all hacked and insecure passwords available for download on the site. He advises: If you want to check current passwords, download the zip file - be careful, it is more than 5 gigabytes in size - and search the list on your computer. It's much safer than typing a password into an online search. Because you shouldn't do that in principle.

Searching Can Help with Future Passwords

If you come up with a new password for an online account, the service can help you. Hackers often use known passwords for so-called brute force attacks. In these attacks, for example, a program tests known passwords, all words listed in the Duden, and all English words as passwords to hack your account. That means: Passwords that got into the hands of criminals in a hack are insecure.

Know that You Got Hacked and Then? React!

Dip your email address or one of your passwords in the Database with access data, you should change the password. Not just for one service, but wherever you log in with this email address and password. This means: If you log in to Facebook, Instagram, Amazon, and LinkedIn with the same combination, you will exchange the password on all pages, even if only the LinkedIn password has been published by hackers.

Download total security software to protect your data from hackers.