Google warns BILLIONS of passwords have been hacked – check your online accounts now
BILLIONS of passwords for online accounts have leaked to the web in recent years – and it's easy to find out if yours are among them.
Google has built a handy tool that allows users of its Chrome web browser to quickly check if their online credentials are compromised.
The tool, called Password Checkup, is a free add-on for Chrome released in 2019 in an attempt to boost users' online security.
It scans known databases of usernames and passwords that have been stolen from websites by hackers and made available online.
The tool, for instance, likely pulls from a number of recent major online breaches, such as the 2012 LinkedIn hack.
The break-in saw the usernames and passwords of 6.5million LinkedIn users stolen by cyber crooks and sold online.
Google's Password Checkup encourages you to change your usernames and passwords if they've been leaked by hackers.
It displays a warning whenever you sign in to a website using "one of over 4billion usernames and passwords" that have been compromised.
"Since our launch, over 650,000 people have participated in our early experiment," Google's Jennifer Pullman explained in 2019.
"In the first month alone, we scanned 21million usernames and passwords and flagged over 316,000 as unsafe – 1.5% of sign-ins scanned by the extension."
Alternatively, popular web-tool Have I Been Pwned also lets you check if you've ever been hacked.
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