"Dark Web Monitoring?!" Anyone Know About It?

CallMeKate

CallMeKate

Well-known Member
Location
Mid-Atlantic US
One of my email platforms just had a popup that said this:
Dark Web Monitoring
Turn on Dark Web Monitoring to get notified if your data was leaked from a third-party service.

I didn't know something like this existed. Looks as if it's free to do, but I'm not really comfortable with *anything* having to do with the dark web. Is this something that's good to check into?
 

hawkdon said:
Delete it for safety....
Click to expand...
That's what I'd normally do, Hawk, but this is an offer directly from the mail service I've been using for a few years. It's been very reliable and never an issue with it... more secure than most others. (ProtonMail) This is something they're offering their users, but "dark web" scares me, even for monitoring to see if they have my info.
 

Okay, found more about it in the security center... but still not sure it's something I should check into:

Dark Web Monitoring promptly notifies you when your personal information has been exposed on the dark web. This exposure typically occurs when a third-party service you use experiences a compromise, whether due to negligence or a deliberate attack.

Anyone with a paid Proton plan can take advantage of Dark Web Monitoring. It ensures timely awareness of potential risks to your personal data, and gives you relevant actions you can take to mitigate them.

Where to find Dark Web Monitoring?

Dark Web Monitoring is available to everyone with a paid plan. You can find and enable Dark Web Monitoring within the new Security center or on your Settings page under Security and privacy.
 
I also use ProtonMail. I haven't seen that message yet. I did some research, and I would trust that ProtonMail scans do not scan the "Dark Web" but there are databases and forums for your personal information (like email addresses or passwords) that may have been leaked in data breaches. I have a free account so I don't have that option. If I did I would feel safe turning it on. I trust ProtonMail because it is so careful about protecting our info. There is another way to check to see if your info is on the "Dark Web". Go to HaveIBeenPwned.com and type your email address. It found 1 data breach for my Yahoo mail account.

Breaches you were pwned in​

A "breach" is an incident where data has been unintentionally exposed to the public.
Zynga: In September 2019, game developer Zynga (the creator of Words with Friends) suffered a data breach. The incident exposed 173M unique email addresses alongside usernames and passwords stored as salted SHA-1 hashes. The data was provided to HIBP by dehashed.com.
Compromised data: Email addresses, Passwords, Phone numbers, Usernames

No breaches with ProtonMail account.
 
I have gotten the warning from Proton a few times in the past couple of years. It's just a warning (like Chrome does) saying that a website has been breeched so might want to change password for the site. The best example I can think of is when LastPass got breeched. I had been using that so I got several warnings when that site got breeched.
 

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