Mozilla has announced the Firefox Monitor tool, which seeks to alert web users when their data has been breached, is now available to everyone.
The Mozilla Foundation has spent the summer testing the tool, which was built in collaboration with Troy Hunt, the creator of the Have I Been Pwned (HIBP) website. The idea of the free service is to help web users recover when information like usernames and passwords have been compromised.
The first step is to visit monitor.firefox.com to check email addresses against the HIPB database to see it matches against a library of breaches. If a hit comes back, the service advises users to change the password associated with that service and any other where it may have been used.
The proactive element enables users to sign up their email addresses to be notified if they’re implicated in future data breaches. Mozilla says a private email will be sent to alert those users.
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In a blog post, Firefox says the positive reception the feature received from test users over the summer has given it “the confidence we needed to know this was a feature we wanted to give to all of our users.”
Mozilla says it is protecting users’ email addresses when they’re scanned and will not be sharing them with third parties. The company previously explained how it anonymises the data in a blog post announcing the feature back in June.
As of right now, the Firefox Monitor url is not loading, but that may be due to a host of people attempting to try the tool at the same time.
Has Firefox Monitor helped you identify an account breach? Were you surprised about the number of breaches the search returned? Share your experiences with us @TrustedReviews on Twitter.
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Editorial independence
Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.