Recently, a fake website popped up on the internet which claims to contain a database of over 1.4 billion compromised user accounts and passwords. According to the journalist Daniel Verlaan, who reported the copycat, some of the passwords in the database could be a few years old.
Fake “Have I Been Pwned” Wants Bitcoin For Not Leaking Your Passwords
Well, for those who don’t know about Have I Been Pwned website, let me tell you, it’s a website which helps users to know whether their email address is a part of any database dumps. The website is heavily used by internet user for analyzing and storing database dumps and leaked account details.
Users just need to visit the website to know if their account is been compromised in recent time. The best thing about the website is that it’s completely free. Recently, a fake website popped up on the internet which claims to contain a database of over 1.4 billion compromised user accounts and passwords.
According to the journalist Daniel Verlaan, who reported the copycat, some of the passwords in the database could be a few years old. However, the entire database is the same as of the password search engine Gotcha.
According to the reports from The Next Web, a database contains legitimate passwords. But, the site doesn’t have plaintext passwords for all the compromised accounts. The fake website also allowed users to check their details via a search engine. However, here’s the creepy part, it also displayed passwords in plaintext.
This simply means that anyone can search the same for other people as well. The fake website then asks for a $10 in crypto coins as a donation to remove the passwords from the site. However, the site is not getting enough visitors. Moreover, the site hasn’t yet done any successful cryptocurrency transaction.
The best thing to stay on the safe side is to change your passwords. So, what do you think about this? Share your views in the comment box below.
