Kentucky Serendipity

Has Your Online Data Been Hacked? 1 June 2015

Almost every week we are greeted with a headline about another hacking of online data. Banks, insurance companies, retailers, and others have had their sites hacked and customer data stolen. Federal and state laws require companies to notify customers of major data thefts but sometimes companies are slow to notify. have i been pwned? is an online site where you can check to see if your email address or user name is included in any known data breaches. Enter your email address or user name on the site, and it checks whether the address is in any known or suspected stolen databases. have i been pwned? is safe and is run by a computer security expert for the public benefit. As well as the email/user name checker, it has information on data breaches. This is a good tool for periodically checking whether your online data may have been compromised. (The word “pwned” is a corruption of the word “owned” as in “I owned him.” It is common slang term among gamers and has passed into general Internet and geek usage.)