The Firefox Monitor informs you about current data thefts and can tell you whether your own data occurs in stolen data records. A practical service that many more people in Germany should know.
Evaluate your own risk with the Firefox Monitor!
Data theft is a huge problem. Remembering a complex password for each service is almost impossible and, as data thefts show, only very few people do so. However, since passwords still have to be assigned, the same ones are often used.
If a password is stolen, the other accounts on which the same password is used are also at risk. The Firefox Monitor is supposed to help here, inform people and, if necessary, also notify them. Changing passwords, especially counting them up and down, is also a major security problem for account security.
What should I do if my data has been stolen?
Stealing data is a potential target for criminals. That’s why we talk about this topic regularly in our Live Hacking. Often the own E-Mail is still checked on site. There is no general answer to the question of what to do after a data theft. After all, the child has already fallen into the well. One preventive tool would have been to delete the account. With the help of cyberpflege you can see how easy it is to unsubscribe, if it is possible at all.
Once the data has been stolen, however, the state can no longer be changed by deleting the account. The Firefox monitor doesn’t change this either. But it provides information on data theft and prepares the results in a different or higher quality. Since you can argue about taste, everyone can make his own picture: The new verification service of Firefox.
Where do the findings and data of the Firefox Monitor come from?
Classics that we have presented so far at Live Hacking were the platforms of Troy Hunt (haveibeenpwnd.com) and those of Hasso-Plattner Institut (Identity Leak Checker). So far, the Firefox Monitor does not supplement either of the two offerings. Technically, the Mozilla platform works closely with Troy Hunt. That is also not surprising. The data from HIPB can be easily queried via an API. Since the service is always up-to-date and provides a database with password hashes, the site has built up a trustworthy reputation.
Whether Mozilla wants to equip the Firefox Monitor with further services is not known yet. However, the website looks very modern and will certainly find many users who could not make friends with haveibeenpwnd.com.
