A play on the word owned, pwned is a slang word that means “to appropriate or to conquer to gain ownership”. Or, in simpler terms means your personal data has been compromised by a hack or data breach.
After such widespread and public hacks, like the Democratic Party emails in summer 2016 or the Yahoo breach of over 200 million users that recently came to light it’s becoming ever more important to secure your online data. But how can you find out if you have ever been hacked before?
Enter: Have I Been Pwned – a website dedicated to informing victims of data breaches.
It’s simple. Visit the website. Type in your email address. And voila! Your results will be posted if you have ever been involved in a breach. You can also sign up for notifications if your email address appears in any future data breaches. It’s that easy.
So have you been Pwned!?
revised Feb 6, 2020
