If you’ve ever wondered if your personal data has been exposed in a breach, or have even tried to find out, there’s a good chance you’ve stumbled upon Have I Been Pwned (HIBP). With the annual ITWeb Security Summit coming up, Brainstorm had the opportunity to chat to Troy Hunt, HIBP’s founder, who will be presenting at the event, to be run virtually from 1 to 3 June. HIBP is a free service that aggregates data breaches – either sent to it or disclosed – and currently contains several billion records from these incidents. Should a service, such as Dropbox or LinkedIn, be hacked, and the data published online, the service helps the individuals affected by the incident learn of their exposure.

Speaking of the trends he sees, Hunt says the indicators that result in data breaches are ticking up. “Covid, and the almost overnight move to the cloud that went hand in hand with it, definitely accelerated things. We’ve seen a lot of upward trends in various aspects of how we live our lives, and with increasing numbers of people online, comes increasing data breaches. Although this trend has slowed in more developed areas, the same can’t be said for emerging markets. Other technological advancements are also bringing new opportunities for cybercriminals. Biotechnics, for example, which collects data we’ve never had before.”