Posted on November 24, 2017 at 5:52 PM
Mozilla Introduces Data Breach Notification System
Firefox will launch a system that notifies affected users of damaging data breaches.
The web browser, Firefox by the tech giant, Mozilla, intends to make a system available that will notify users of data breaches. Once a user visits a website, the browser will alert the user of all past and current data breaches.
While the software is still only a prototype, an engineer involved in the project has confirmed that it will alert a user if the visited website has ever been the target of a data leak.
According to Nihanth Subramanya, from Mozilla, the system has been designed to act as an add-on on a user’s internet browser bar. The software will be linked to the popular data breach service, haveibeenpwned.com. If a visited website has experienced a data breach in the past, the user will be alerted by a pop-up notification.
HaveIBeenPwned, the popular data leak service, has been created by Troy Hunt, a notable Australian cybersecurity expert, and researcher.
The data breach website has been designed to allow users to check if their credentials have ever been involved in a reported data leak. By entering their email address, the user can check the status of their online security. The site has grown rapidly in popularity and is thought to have over 4.8 million credentials from 252 different data leak incidents.
Mozilla confirmed earlier this week that they were partnering up with HaveIBeenPwned to create their alert service.
During an interview, Hunt also confirmed the partnership. According to Hunt, he and Mozilla were in the process of examining the best possible way to integrate this service into Firefox browsers.
In an image shown on the popular tech website, Bleeping Computer, the Firefox web browser banner gave out a pop-up notification to the user that the current website has had a previous data breach. The current website visited was LinkedIn, who was involved in a major data breach.
Hunt expressed his enthusiasm for the upcoming project using Twitter:
As many people have now worked out, yes, we're doing some awesome things with @mozilla and @haveibeenpwned ? https://t.co/UFW0CNLGtk
— Troy Hunt (@troyhunt) November 22, 2017
Hunt later added that he was taken aback at this latest project’s positive feedback.
This is a huge step forward for web browsers and could perhaps work towards securing their users’ safety in the future. So far, Google Chrome and Apple Safari have not revealed plans for similar ventures in the futures. However, considering the vast amounts of data breaches in the past, information like this could be invaluable to a user looking to secure their online presence and information.
