How to check for Data Breaches on Google Chrome & Mozilla Firefox.
The casual habits of companies to store data unencrypted on their servers have always led to data leaks. Microsoft was the last to join us. A new report found that nearly 250 million Microsoft customer records have been accessed online over 14 years without password protection. And, unfortunately, this is just the tip of the iceberg.
Zoom, the popular video conferencing application, faced a similar threat when 500,000 Zoom accounts were available on the dark web. To fix this problem, you need to have a complex password and update it periodically. That being said, if you’re curious to know if your data is being sold on some questionable website. Here’s how to check for data leaks in Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome.
Read: 5 best local storage password managers
How to check for data breaches
Firefox dæmon
Firefox Monitor is an online service from Mozilla that informs you of data breaches associated with your email address. It is accessible from any browser and there is no need to register. To check if your email address has been opened, you first need to visit the Firefox Monitor website. Then enter your email address and click “Check for violations”.
If your email ID is relatively new, chances are you are safe and not leaked. However, if your email id is old, you might find the same result as I did. This means that my ID has suffered seven data breaches since 2007.
In addition to this, you can also click on individual data leak results for more information. For example, Canva’s data breach revealed email addresses, passwords, locations and usernames.
If you are serious about data breaches, Firefox gives you many more options after you log in. To do this, you need to create a Firefox Monitor account if you don’t already have one. You can add multiple email accounts, track data and hack password from home screen.
Turn on the violation alert to notify you every time your data is disclosed.
Google Password Manager
Google also has a similar feature, but it only checks passwords stored in your Google account. For example, if you used Google Chrome to save the password for the Netflix website. Google can only check for a password crack on the Netflix website.
To use this feature, open Google Chrome or any other browser. Then open the password manager. This page also lists all saved passwords that you can view, change, and edit. Click on the Check Passwords option at the top.
Click Check Passwords again. This will show you a password analysis as well as three options.
- Whether any of your passwords have been cracked.
- A list of reusable passwords that are the same for multiple accounts and therefore can be compromised. Here’s how to create a unique password.
- A list of weak passwords that are easy to guess and therefore more likely to be cracked. So, create a strong password.
This way, you can easily view and manage passwords saved in Chrome or Android. Run a password check to improve your security. Your passwords are stored securely in your Google account and are available to you across all your sync-enabled devices.
Firefox Monitor vs Google Password Check
Well, as you can clearly see, there is a difference between both utilities. I have listed the ones worth knowing.
Google Monitor only checks Google accounts
The main difference is that Google Password Check can only check the integrity of the stored passwords on your Google account. There is no way to check for a data breach outside of your Google account. Unlike Firefox Monitor, there are no such restrictions. You can use any account you like and it searches based on your email id.
Google just checks for cracked passwords, not email
I used the same google account with both services. Although Google Password Check and Firefox Monitor show the password has not been opened previously. The latter also checks to see if the email appears in any compromised database. It shows this separately in the toolbar.
Firefox Monitor also includes old results
Firefox Monitor uses the public data source Have I been Pwned. Hence, when you run a search, it also includes sources dated from 2007. This way, even if you changed your password, information about old data leaks will still show up in the results. Google Password Manager does not provide detailed information on the break, but you can check information such as date of the break, open credentials, and more with Firefox Monitor.
Firefox Monitor can monitor multiple accounts
Firefox Monitor not only has the ability to check for data leaks on any account. But after registering, you can add multiple accounts and view the information in a minimal dashboard right on the home screen. This option is great for people who don’t want to manually check for a breach or use multiple accounts.
Closing words
As I said at the beginning, no data is secure. Since both services inform you of the breach once it is fixed, your credentials are exposed. However, you can always take care of a few things, such as changing your password frequently, avoiding the same or similar passwords, creating strong passwords, and enabling two-step verification wherever it is supported.
Also read: 6 ways to password protect a folder in Windows