The site “Have I Been Pwned” is known for analyzing and storing data dumps and account that have been leaked. A user can visit the site to find out if their account has been leaked in the recent past. And the best part is that the service is completely free.
However, a fake website similar to Have I Been Pwned has appeared online and is causing concern among users. The website claims to contain a database of more than 1.4 billion leaked user accounts and passwords.
However, some of the passwords in the database could be quite old. According to journalist Daniel Verlaan, who reported the existence of the site in question, the database is the same as the Gotcha password search engine.
TNW confirmed that the database contains legitimate passwords. However, the site does not have encrypted passwords for all the accounts in its database.
Like HIBP, the fake site allows users to check their account details through a search engine. What’s strange about this site, however, is that it displays passwords in plaintext. This means someone can search for other people as well. The fake site then asks for $10 in digital currency as a fee to remove the passwords from the site.
However, this is not a cause for concern as there have been no reported cases of successful bitcoin transactions on the site. The best thing to do is to change your passwords if you are suspicious.
According to the latest update from Verlaan, the search engine on the site has stopped working. It is currently asking users to wait for a while while it runs crypro miners in the background.
