By now, we all know that Adobe leaked roughly 150 million user passwords last week after a data breach occurred as a result of a hacking attack. What you might not know is that you can actually check to see if your Adobe account was among the many that were compromised by the infiltrators.
A programmer who goes by the Twitter handle @Hilare_Belloc created a web-based tool that allows you to determine if your account was hit simply by typing in your email address and hitting Enter. Though @Hilare_Belloc cautions that using the tool could result in a false positive, they simultaneously attempt to put the user at ease by indicating that the probability of false positives should be no greater than 0.03 percent.
“If your Adobe password is compromised, that possibly won’t have a huge impact on your online life,” said says Graham Cluley, a security expert. “But if that same password is being used elsewhere on the net (and sadly, we know that many people use the same password for multiple websites) then the consequences could be significant.”
Want to see if your Adobe account was hit during the hacks? Here’s how.
How to check if your Adobe account was compromised by hackers
First, go to this website. Then, type in your Adobe email address at the top and press Enter. If you’re in the clear, you’ll get a message that says you’re safe. If you’re affected, the site will provide you with a message saying so. You should change your password immediately if the tool flags your account.
You might be wondering what you should do to protect yourself from such danger in the future. For starters, don’t use passwords like “123456,” which was the most commonly used password by Adobe account holders whose logins were affected by the cyber attack. You can also check out this guide to help make your password as secure as possible.