We will always use email and click links online, data breaches may occur in platform we sign up with our email while some links online are malicious. We may not be aware of these breaches or links except we use some tools to monitor these and then take the necessary steps to protect ourselves online.
For email breach:
One of the best tool for this is the
HIBP (Have I been pwned), you don't have to sign up to use it. I recently use it and its doesn't just verify if your email address as any breach but also where did the breach occurred and what data was reviewed to the public.
Input your email address and click the
pwned?note: This site offers other features like
pwned Password, which check if a password has ever been exposed in any data breach. You can access it other features by clicking the menu button at the top right corner of the image above.
I did try it with my own email and it has 2 data breaches from Canva and Wattpad. When I sign up on those platforms I never knew anything much about privacy and security, so I literally signed up directly with my Gmail account and I guess the compromise data is what they took. I never knew they literally had such data breach till I did this.
Privacy policy : I checked the privacy policy, the data collected are what are needed for verification and its not shared with third party.
File/links Scanners :
Some files and links online contains malware which we may not be aware of but in order to have some surety that a file or link is secure, you can use :
VirusTotal's : this scan link/files with the aid of 70 antivirus engines and blacklisting services to verify if it is free from malware.
Privacy policy: Its shares user data with the community to teach and improve knowledge about malicious files/links
Though it offer anonymous features that is, you don't need sign up to use it, were you can verify if a link or file contains malware (this fixture is what I did use).
There are other sites that offers this features but I don't really know any that up to 70 anti-virus engines while for the HIBP I have not use others except this.
