The email addresses we use daily with online service require a login, and this data point is often linked with additional information like passwords, personal information, and phone numbers.
In Q3 2024, over 100 million North American accounts were breached - a figure that makes up a quarter of affected accounts. Globally, that number skyrockets to over 420 million, which means over 3,200 accounts were compromised every minute. This covers small businesses, large corporations, and everyday internet users with sensitive personal data, leaving many individuals vulnerable to identity theft and fraud.
Due to a recent "security event," one of the largest companies in the world, Amazon, saw phone numbers, email addresses, and locations of its employees stolen as part of last year's MOVEit Transfer hack. In another recent example, U.S. communications giant T-Mobile was reportedly breached as part of a Chinese hacking operation targeting international telecommunications companies.
Not all data breaches are the same; however, any information tied to an email address or user ID is at risk. This covers everything from full names to addresses, usernames, passwords, and sensitive data like credit card numbers, medical records, and social security numbers.
With sensitive information held in countless databases and servers and large and small data breaches happening every minute, there is a real risk that your data has leaked. Thankfully, there are tools that empower you to take control of your online data.
Surfshark's free Data Leak Checker is invaluable because it lets you see if your data and personal information have leaked via a data breach covering both databases and malware sources. This includes websites, domains, services, and even products where you have account information; all you need to do is enter the email address you want to check, and the Data Leak Checker will handle the rest while keeping your details private.
You'll be given a detailed overview of various domains and services where that email address was compromised. The overview also provides information about what was compromised, from usernames to location data to passwords. Based on the sheer volume of data breaches, where hundreds of millions of accounts are compromised each quarter, there's a definite risk that an account you hold has been compromised, so the free Data Leak Checker gives you the information you need to take immediate action.
It also highlights the need for ongoing protection from data breaches and malware exposing sensitive data, with real-time monitoring that will notify you when your data, or that of your immediate family, is exposed.
Surshark Alert, available in the Surshark One cybersecurity bundle, lives up to its name by providing 24/7 real-time alerts and notifications across a wide range of data points. It will notify you immediately when an email address appears in a reported breached online database. Surshark Alert also checks passwords to see if they've been breached to inform you if they're secure enough to use, and it covers credit cards.
A single subscription lets you monitor an unlimited number of emails, credit cards, and online IDs. A detailed Breach Report is also provided annually or quarterly so you can stay on top of and in charge of your data security. Surfshark One offers a complete suite of protection tools, including secure 24/7 VPN access for privacy, the ability to create a new online identity with Alternative ID that's like adding a shield over your true identity, antivirus, and malware protection, and the invaluable Surshark Alert tool for data breach prevention and monitoring.
Once your data has been included in a breach, you might think it's gone forever or, more accurately, out there forever. This isn't the case, as most data from breaches ends up in the digital hands of data brokers that offer this data to marketing firms and less reputable groups, exposing you to everything from spam emails that know your name to outright fraud and identity theft.
The Surfshark One+ subscription includes access to the award-winning Incogni tool, which effortlessly deletes personal data from over 170+ data brokers. This dramatically reduces the chance that your data will end up in the wrong hands while enhancing your online safety by making it harder for individuals or groups to access your information.
As part of a current Winter Deal for the holiday season, Surfshark One and Surfshark One+ subscriptions are available at a massive discount. These subscriptions give you access to Alert, real-time monitoring, a full suite of cybersecurity tools, and the incredible Incogni.