What is “Have I Been Pwned”? It’s a website that allows Internet users to check whether their personal data has been compromised by data breaches. The service collects and analyzes hundreds of database dumps and pastes containing information about billions of leaked accounts, and allows users to search for their own information by entering their username or email address.
The word “pwned” has origins in video game culture and is a leetspeak derivation of the word “owned”, due to the proximity of the “o” and “p” keys. It’s typically used to imply that someone has been controlled or compromised, for example “I was pwned in the Adobe data breach”.
Pwned Passwords are hundreds of millions of real world passwords previously exposed in data breaches. This exposure makes them unsuitable for ongoing use as they’re at much greater risk of being used to take over other accounts. Check if your email or phone is in a data breach.
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