Inside LeakedSource and Its Database of 3 Billion Hacked Accounts

By now it’s hard to keep track of which companies have been hacked and which haven’t. Remember the FourSquare hack? What about Adobe? Even breaches that were high-profile at the time are fading into obscurity as bigger and scarier ones crop up. (Ahem, Yahoo.) And if you can’t remember what’s been hacked, you’re probably struggling to keep track of which leaks have included your personal data. That’s where “the Google of data breaches” comes in.

LeakedSource is a service that sends email notifications about new breaches and offers a database of information stolen in hacks. Its basic services—the ability to sign up for email notifications and search the database—are free, but users can pay to access more advanced search functionality. LeakedSource also provides a paid tool for businesses, so that they can notify users who have been affected by a breach. The project started in late 2015, and with just days to go in 2016, the group that runs LeakedSource is planning to release roughly 100 million more records from a “Chinese mega site” that hasn’t yet announced the hack, according to a LeakedSource representative. That will bring LeakedSource’s total for the year to a whopping three billion. It plans to publish 105 million more in early 2017, a combined total from 20-30 hacked sites.