With the rise in cyber attacks and data breaches, internet users around the world could be on the verge of being hacked at any time. Perhaps the hackers won’t attack them directly, yet, they can access much of the personal and financial details of millions of individuals after hacking any large organization. To aim to cope up with this matter, Mozilla is set to launch a new feature that will notify the users about breaches. So, get ready to get your hands on Firefox Monitor.
Mozilla Joins Forces With HIBP To Form Firefox Monitor
Troy Hunt, security researcher and the creator of the celebrated platform ‘Have I Been Pwned’ (HIBP) confirms in his blog post about his collaboration with Mozilla to launch a new feature. This new feature, termed ‘Firefox Monitor’, will notify users in case of a breach. Plus, the users can directly search through the database to find out if their email address suffered breaches at any time.
Mozilla has also informed their users about this new feature through their website. They state,
“Visitors to the Firefox Monitor website will be able to check (by entering an email address) to see if their accounts were included in known data breaches, with details on sites and other sources of breaches and the types of personal data exposed in each breach. The site will offer recommendations on what to do in the case of a data breach, and how to help secure all accounts. We are also considering a service to notify people when new breaches include their personal data.
HIBP has been a favorite tool for internet users for quite some time. Recently, several users searched for their email addresses after the Ticketfly hack. Talking about the tool, Troy Hunt writes in his blog,
“This is major because Firefox has an install base of hundreds of millions of people which significantly expands the audience that can be reached once this feature rolls out to the mainstream.”
Working of Firefox Monitor
Firefox Monitor will be available to the users as a simple browser add-on. Therefore, anyone can scan his or her email through the HIBP database directly through the browser. Moreover, the users can also register themselves with HIBP. They will then receive notifications if and whenever hackers access their details through any hacking attempt.
Mozilla further assures maintaining users’ privacy through feature.
“As such, we’ve worked closely with HIBP and Cloudflare to create a method of anonymized data sharing for Firefox Monitor, which never sends your full email address to a third party, outside of Mozilla.”
Expressing his excitement about the tool, Troy Hunt comments,
“It is a neat way of ensuring that anonymity is still protected and that subscribers of those services stay abreast of security incidents that impact them.”
Presently, the tool is in its testing phase. Mozilla plans to involve about 250,000 users in the US to test this tool over the next few weeks. Until then, users can download the Firefox Quantum version to get their hands on Firefox Monitor when launched.
Let us know your thoughts on Mozilla’s new tool in the comments section.