What are sensitive breaches?

[Badran]

In https://haveibeenpwned.com/

it says you can subscribe to search sensitive breaches. What is a sensitive breach?

[David H. Lipman]

Pertains to the ascertainment of sensitive Personally Identifiable Information (PII)

[NewTricks]

If your email is in the database, and you've either abandoned that mail, or made an incredibly strong password, is that enough? Subscribing to sensitive breaches might be moot if you have taken action. 

I ran my (already known) compromised mail, and 3 family members, and HELLO! we are in that club. Mine had the shortest list. The difference is, I care and know what to do. Not true of the others.

Edited March 5 by NewTricks
spelling

[Badran]

My very first email I had was in a few, which caused me to abandon it, and migrate the important account to completely new addresses.

Id like to say I’m in a good position now, but my family members are the same, when it comes to breaches. They haven’t been in that many all together, but I still urge them to be more careful. I’m currently urging my mother to activate 2FA on more of her accounts, but she unfortunately keeps putting it off.

[David H. Lipman]

When you subscribe, you may receive an email of any new breaches that email, that you used to subscribe with, may be associated with.

The knowledge here is key.

• That there was a Breach in which you were involved with and was identified with the email address
• the need of a change of a password and it being replaced with a Strong Password
• the knowledge that the information may be used in a scam such as an email based ¹Blackmail scheme
• The knowledge the issue of Breaches is ongoing and you must be prepared to handle past, present and future events.
• Passwords must be unique and not used amongst multiple sites.

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1.
US FBI PSA - Extortionists Increasingly Using Recipients' Personal Information To Intimidate Victims
US FTC Consumer Information - How to avoid a Bitcoin blackmail scam
Bitcoin - Bitcoin Abuse Database
BleepingComputer - Beware of Extortion Scams Stating They Have Video of You on Adult Sites
Malwarebytes' Blog - Sextortion emails: They’re probably not watching you
Malwarebytes Forum sample thread - Got strange threating email.
Malwarebytes Forum FYI thread - FYI: Email Blackmail Scam still current

 

 

Edited March 5 by David H. Lipman
Edited for content, clarity, spelling and/or grammar

[NewTricks]

31 minutes ago, David H. Lipman said:

The knowledge the issue of Beaches is ongoing and you must be prepared to handle past, present and future events.

Critical to the well informed.

 

33 minutes ago, David H. Lipman said:

Malwarebytes Forum FYI thread - FYI: Email Blackmail Scam still current

I missed this, thanks for bringing all the sources in one place.

 

39 minutes ago, Badran said:

I’m currently urging my mother to activate 2FA on more of her accounts, but she unfortunately keeps putting it off.

I totally sympathize. I'm on the opposite end: I'm the mother trying to convince 2 generations to be more careful.