I’ve mentioned the breach monitoring service “Have I Been Pwned” several times in past articles, and it continues to be a valuable service in finding out if any of my credentials have been exposed in any of the numerous breaches that have occurred over the past 7 years, as well as any new breaches that occur going forward. What’s disheartening for folks like me who have a keen interest in cyber security is that though this service is free, Have I Been Pwned only has 2M subscribers, out of a possible 3.6B unique email addresses in their database, meaning that less than 1% of potential users are utilizing the service. Hopefully that will change now that both web browser Firefox and password manager 1Password will start to heavily feature HIBP lookups directly in their interfaces.
What this means for you
Because they know I manage many hundreds of passwords as part of my business, my clients always ask me which password manager I use. Unfortunately for them, I can’t recommend Passpack, primarily because it isn’t designed for the average consumer. In the past, I’ve recommended LastPass or Dashlane, but with 1Password’s built-in integration of HIBP look-ups and wide availability on all major platforms, it seems like an obvious recommendation, to the point where I am considering migrating our business password management to them. Keep in mind that it’s not free, but there are family and team plans in case you feel like leading the way for your corner of the internet.
I’m also asked frequently about which web browser to use. Up until recently, I was a huge Google Chrome advocate, and I still use it on a regular basis on one of my laptops, but I have recently switched to Mozilla Firefox as my main workhorse browser, primarily for the expanding set of security and privacy features like the above-mentioned HIBP integration and Firefox’s own identity containers which can help to stop advertisers from snooping your cookies and history while you surf the web. It’s also very fast and a bit better at managing its RAM usage, unlike Chrome and Microsoft’s Edge, both of which are notorious memory hogs. If you are considering switching to Firefox, keep in mind that there are still some sites and services, especially in-house business solutions that may not run consistently, so always know where your Internet Explorer and Chrome shortcuts reside in case you need to fallback to another browser. Fortunately all three can safely co-exist, so it’s worth giving it a spin.
Finally, if you haven’t added your email address to Have I Been Pwned, you really should, even if you are afraid of what you might find out. The initial dismay is worth the longer-term gains in security.
