NEW DELHI: We all our very well aware that its highly important to keep a strong password in order to keep the data safe from hackers. However, you might not know that the passwords which seem complicated can also be dangerous. As a password once captured in any data breach very likely gets posted online on cybercrime forums.
For eample, in the year 2016, someone claimed that he has about 272 million passwords and can trade them for likes on social media. It was then discovered that the passwords were not from any recent data breach, but they were collected from past data breaches.
This clearly indicates that it is pretty easy for the hacked passwords to travel across the internet. The hackers will get hold of them and will try to break into other online accounts using them. So, even if your password is long and random then also don’t use it if it has been caught in a data breach.
So, you must be wondering that how you will get to know which password is hacked or not. Don’t worry there is a solution to that problem as well. Okta, a login management company has come up a browser plug-in to solve this issue. Named as PassProtect, the plug-in will inform you that how many times a password you are using has been exposed to data breach.
Here’s how the plug-in works
Firstly, you go to the login page of your favourite website and enter your password and hit enter. Now you will notice a window pop up warning you: "The password you just entered has been found in 26 data breaches. This password is not safe to use." So, once you dismiss the message, then it is up to you whether you want to change the password or not. But you will not see the same warning again for the same website in the same browser.
The company says that the plug-in draws its data from "Have I Been Pwned" database, which keeps the track of all hacked passwords, so you can directly go to that website and test your passwords as well.
Presently, PassProtect only work on Chrome browser but the company is working on bringing the same to FireFox as well. Moreover, plug-in only analyses passwords and not usernames. In the future the company also aims to add this functionality to the plug-in as well.
Source:-www.gadgetsnow.com