Over the past few years, security attacks like those on Adobe, Snapchat and Ashley Madison, have caused millions of email addresses to be leaked, stolen and sold on to other cyber criminals.

The ‘have I been pwned’ website can help you check to see if there has been a breach on your email accounts and usernames.

Pwned is a play on the word ‘owned’, which is informally used to refer to making a fool out of someone, or taking advantage of them.

The website includes details from 102 (at the time of reading) ‘pwned’ websites, or websites that have suffered some form of security breach.

These include VTech, Adobe, Paddy Power, Yahoo, Sony, Tesco, Minecraft Pocket Edition and more.

Clicking on the name of the site reveals when its users’ information was leaked, the cause, and how many accounts were affected.

To find out if you have become a victim to a breach, simply type in your email or any known usernames that you may have on the site, and click ‘pwned?’

If the details are discovered on one of the leaked lists, it will display what list and what details are at risk e.g. password and username – which if you use the same username and password for multiple sites, can be a worry.

Useful links:

For information about our work to prevent individuals and communities from becoming victims of cyber crime, please visit www.safeinwarwickshire.com/cybercrime

Be Cyber Streetwise is a cross-government campaign, funded by the National Cyber Security Programme. They aim to measurably and significantly improve the online safety behaviour and confidence of consumers and small businesses (SMEs).

Get Safe Online is the UK’s leading source of factual and easy-to-understand information on online safety. Their website offers advice on how you can protect yourself, your computers and devices, and your business against the likes of fraud, identity theft, viruses and other potential online problems.