Firefox has joined hands with Have I Been Pwned for this project.
Mozilla introduced a new service earlier this year called Firefox Monitor, and now the company is adding a new feature to this service. The newly added feature will take scrutiny to a whole new level by allowing users to sign up for getting notified when their account appears in any upcoming data breaches.
This is one of the most wanted features by users since Mozilla surveyed regarding which feature Firefox users wanted most to be added to their favorite browser, and the results indicated that they wanted to receive notifications about new hacks/breaches.
See: Cryptomining scripts will be blocked in upcoming versions of Firefox browser
The purpose of launching Firefox Monitor was to inform users whether their accounts have been hacked in one of the recent data breaches. Initially, it was claimed to be an experimental service but now it has been launched as an official service.
To use Firefox Monitor, a user only has to provide his or her email ID, which will be scanned through the Have I Been Pwned database to determine if the account has been compromised. If none of your IDs have been hacked then you are extremely lucky. However, you need to keep using the new alerting feature because it is quite possible that it may show up in future breaches.
Firefox Monitor, according to Mozilla, is only the first of a number of new privacy features that the company will be launching in the next few months. Evidently, Mozilla wants to position itself as a provider of one of the safest browsing environments to users especially since Google’s Chrome is being severely criticized over a collection of the vast amount of user data and weak privacy policy.
See: Safari & Firefox browser to block user data tracking with new security add-ons
Firefox Monitor’s beta version was unveiled in June in partnership with Troy Hunt’s Have I Been Pwned, which is a data breach monitoring tool. It is indeed a promising new start for Mozilla as the partnership with Hunt will definitely expand the browser’s reach.
Mozilla suggests that users much keep different passwords for different accounts to prevent data breaches across all of their online accounts in case one of them gets hacked. Moreover, enabling 2FA or installing reliable password managers like Dashlane, Keeper or LastPass would further help in managing multiple accounts.