HACKERS had another stonking year in 2021 stealing people’s private data.
Our increased reliance on the internet to work, play and keep in touch during the pandemic has made it even more lucrative for cyber criminals.
With so many accounts and passwords, it can be hard to keep track of your own data – and even more difficult to check it hasn’t been compromised.
Thankfully there’s a site that takes some of the pressure off and can have a look for you.
Haveibeenpwned.com will scan your email address against known data breaches and alert you to any matches.
And now the site has just added one of 2021’s worst threats, which includes 441,000 stolen account details.
These come from a nasty information-stealing piece of malware called RedLine.
RedLine burst onto the dark web in March 2020, right in time for hackers to exploit coronavirus lockdowns with most people at home and online.
Once the malware has infected your gadgets, it is able to steal everything from credit card details, to autocomplete login information.
It can also intercept VPN details, something many people working from home use to access their work’s network.
The malware has caused so much concern that experts have already warned against storing passwords in web browsers.
Keeping passwords saved in the likes of Chrome and Edge are pretty common practice and usually considered quite safe.
But a recent incident saw an unsuspecting employee’s machine allow hackers access to their company’s network through the VPN.
Haveibeenpwned.com is regularly updated with the ever-growing list of data leaks.
If it says your email address was used by RedLine, it isn’t enough to just change passwords for any accounts that use it, according to Bleeping Computer.
You’ll also have to change passwords for all accounts used on your machine, including work VPN and email accounts, as well as any other personal accounts you have used on that device.
In other news, NASA has slammed Russia after a missile it fired into one of its own satellites forced the space station to perform an emergency swerve.
Scientists have figured out how fast a type of dinosaur could run – and it would have given Usain Bolt a run for his money.
And Google has confirmed that some of its smartphones are unable to call emergency services due to a software bug.
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