Many sites allow you to find yourself by phone, mail, or even full name yourself in information leaks and merged databases. They should be used with caution, because any online search may have an additional purpose in enriching data. For example, collecting an IP address, linking several searches of one person to collect information about his environment.
Therefore, the preferred option is always independent search in leak files.
But it can be difficult: you need to find a file (or a lot of files if you need an exhaustive search), understand its structure, and perform an effective search.
If you went the simpler way, then I recommend using such resources in descending order of risks:
The most famous: Have I Been Pwned, supported by a well-known security guard and giving guarantees of privacy.
Other:
They often give shareware access, you can find different sites by the keywords check, leak:
- https://t.me/PhoneLeaks_bot - search for sources of leakage - no longer works
Most bots do not indicate the source from which the information is obtained. List of some resources: Google Spreadsheet.
Some of the sites listed above also can notify you by email if there is a new leak with your data. I highly recommend using such a service if you lead an active virtual life.
Gmail and other most common mail services support special characters to create aliases for your mailbox. Mail sent to an alias will come to your primary email address, but you will clearly see where it came from in the Recipient field.
For example, [email protected] is equivalent to [email protected]:
It's Strictly recommended use this feature on all sites where it is supported. Thus:
- In case of leaks or spam, you'll know exactly where your mail came from.
- In case of a targeted collection of information on your email, information from several sites will be less likely to be merged into one dossier.
Naturally, leak harvesting often uses mail normalization: removing similar parts of aliases and cleaning up the excess. So we can only talk about risk mitigation, not one hundred per cent protection.
Special mention should be made of providing mailing addresses for sending receipts for online purchases.
According to paragraph 2 of Art. 1.2 of the law № 54-FZ, the receipt must be sent electronically if the buyer has provided his subscriber number or an e-mail address before the payment.
This is used by major Telegram bots like the Eye of God: they store all your payment information, connected to the specified email, to the information the bot gives out.
So, if you are not interested in the receipt, then provide a knowingly wrong mailing address pointing to the source of the leak, e.g. [email protected]. Or use the aforementioned aliases, explicitly revealing where the inbox was listed.
So, if you are not interested in the receipt, then provide a knowingly wrong mailing address pointing to the source of the leak, e.g. [email protected]. Or use the aforementioned aliases, explicitly exposing where the email account was listed.
Websites have different approaches to the accuracy of first and last names of accounts. Some require that they coincide with passport data (e.g., in VK), some only check them against documents in case of financial transactions, and most do not validate at all.
You can use the tricks listed below depending on the strictness of the service rules (ToS, Terms of Service). But before using them, I strongly advise you to study what sanctions are possible if you specify an invalid name and assess these risks for yourself.
That way, if that name will be leaked in conjunction with a number or mail, you'll know where the information came from:
- McDonald's: Maxim
- VKontakte: Vova
- Odnoklassniki: Oleg
First of all, this applies to the full/abbreviated form of the name:
- Alexander
- Sasha
- Sanya
- Shura
But because of language differences, a name can have several "Latin" forms. Even banks often give the option of choosing the correct transliteration of names. Thus, the name "Anatoly" can be expressed as:
- Anatoly
- Anatolii
- Anatoliy
🥷 Advanced level
The BitWarden password manager allows you to generate random email aliases with a plus, as well as catch-all mailbox addresses and even mailboxes for forwarding.
Read more about these features in the "🥷 Advanced level" section of the Mailbox section.
