How to find out if your email and password has been compromised and hacked by the recent Collection #1 attack: here’s what to do.
2019 online starts under a bad star: Collection #1 is the new and more recent hacker attack that has seen 773 million email addresses and related passwords compromises. These numbers are mind-boggling, and even your e-mail address might be involved: to find out if the email was hacked, and involved in the recent theft of information, just use a simple and effective online tool.
The name Collection #1 comes from the database recently appeared on MEGA, the hosting site that contains the millions of e-mail addresses put at risk, divided into 12 thousand files and with a total size of 87 GB. Currently the gigantic archive has disappeared, but its presence could still be present on the forums and in the pages of the Deep Web.
However, a website, called Have I Been Pwned, was created to help users, created by Troy Hunt, a specialist and researcher in the field of online security: to him we owe the news, and the alarm, about Collection #1. Let’s see how it works.
How to find out if your email has been hacked
To immediately understand if your email address has been compromised, by Collection #1 or other phishing episodes, connect to the Have I Been Pwned website (at this link ).
Its use is extremely immediate: in the bar at the center of the page, enter your email address and click on the button “pwned?“. The results can be two: one in green, a positive sign indicating that your email has never been violated, and one in red.
The latter informs, unfortunately, of the hack to your email address: in the results are also the number of illegal sites where they would currently be present information related to your e-mail address.
How to find out if your password has been hacked
There is also a way to find out if your password has been hacked in some way, including information on how many times it appeared online.
The tool in question is the twin of the previous, also created by Troy Hunt: it is Pwned Password, which provides information on your security word and not on the associated email, of course.
Also in this case, just enter the password that we want to check in the search bar and wait for the corresponding green or red result, with the corresponding data.
What to do if the email has been hacked
If you have received a negative result from the verification we have proposed to you, do not despair: there are some steps to follow in order to secure your email and protect all your information. First of all, change the password of all your email addresses to unsafe results, making sure to disconnect the email from all devices (by spitting the appropriate option).
Once this is done, create a new password, unique and unique for each email address: it is always good to use capital letters and special characters. Enable two-factor authentication and you’re done. Check the security of your accounts periodically through the two sites in question, and update your protection measures.