Are you worried that your mobile number or e-mail ID has been leaked? Here we will tell you special tricks by which you will be able to find out whether your mobile number or e-mail id has been leaked or not. Here, you will also learn how to keep your personal data safe and secure.
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| Personal Data Leaked? |
How to Know if Your Personal Data Has Been Breached and How to Keep Personal Data Safe?
Data leaks or data breaches are increasing rapidly. Recently, LinkedIn's data was leaked, which included the e-mail IDs and phone numbers of millions of users.
In such a situation, if you are worried that if your phone number or e-mail ID has been leaked, then there is no need to worry at all.
Today we will tell you a special way, with the help of which you will be able to find out whether your mobile number or e-mail ID has been leaked or not. Let's know about this process...
How to Check if Your Phone Number or Email ID Has Been Leaked?
If you want to check whether your mobile number or email address was also part of over 6 million entries of Indian phone numbers or email addresses that were involved in the 533 million phone numbers and emails in the Facebook data leak.
To check data breaches, you can simply go to the Have I Been Pwned website through your phone, computer, or laptop's web browser.
Now you will get a captcha code, enter it. (not always). After this, a new tab will open, in which you will have to enter your e-mail ID or mobile number.
If your mobile number or e-mail id was not leaked, then you will get a message "Good news — no pwnage found!".
But if you found written, "Oh no—pwned!" it means your mobile number or e-mail id has been leaked.
Using the "Have I Been Pwned" website, you can track breached email addresses, passwords, and even your phone numbers, so it's usually a good idea to track whether your data has also been part of a breach in a recent cybersecurity snafu?
You can also use Avast's Hack Check Tool to check if your email address and password have been leaked. To check your mail leaks, simply follow these steps:
1. Go to the Avast’s Hack Check tool page and enter your email address in the given box.
2. Click on ‘Check Now’ and the Hack Check tool will analyze and will show the results if your email address or password has been breached.
You will also receive a message from Avast with the details of the data breach. You can check it in your email inbox.
Note: Hack Check Tool does not let you check whether your phone number is leaked or not.
How to Keep Your Personal Data Safe
Here we are telling you some basic things, with the help of which you can secure your personal data.
Keep in mind that the password for each account should be different. Using the same password across all accounts can prove to be harmful. This increases the chances of data leaks. Also, hackers can easily break into your accounts.
Use two-factor authentication. With this, even if the hacker has the password for your account, he will not be able to access your account.
Almost all services (email, social media, etc.) now offer a two-factor authentication option. You can access it through security settings. When you enable two-factor authentication, every time you log in to your account on any device, you are required to provide an OTP along with the password. And this increases the security of your account. Let us tell you that to open the account with this feature, authentication is required twice.
Your web browser is the main gateway to access the Internet. Here's what you need to do to protect your browser from hackers and other threats. To get started, install a genuine ad-blocker. This will protect you from unwanted ads.
For more security, if possible, use a website with HTTPS. Most browsers now give you the option of private browsing as well. Data is not stored in these. Use it while browsing the sites.
Make it a habit to install the latest available update for your device's operating system. Your computer (Windows/Mac) and smartphone/tablet (iOS, Android), etc. receive messages about operating system updates. They should be used for data security. By doing this, the security patches present in your system are upgraded, which makes your system even more secure.
Also, you get many security features in the new update. With these features, you can keep your personal data safe.