You've Been Hacked; This Is What You Should Do Next!

Find out if your accounts have been hacked, and what to do about it, with Nick Peers

- Nick Peers

If there’s one thing Guaranteed to bring you out in a cold sweat, it’s the thought of being hacked. Over the years we’ve armed you with all the tools you need to protect your PC against viruses, hackers, and other forms of malware, but it’s an ever-evolving battle. These days, most threats are behavioral—they rely on scammers catching you out with fake emails harboring malicious attachments and links to fake websites.

Even if you’re wise to all this, there’s one massive weak link: online accounts. Many of us have signed up for dozens of accounts, and secured them with short, memorable, and often reused passwords that are easy to hack. Worse still, even if you’ve not personally given up your password, chances are at least one online service you use has been hacked, exposing your data to the so-called dark web.

Don’t believe us? In January, the Have I Been Pwned website released Collection 1, a compilation of over 770 million compromised online accounts, including login details and passwords. The site offers a search tool that lets you see if you’re on the list. And unless you’re very lucky or barely use online services, you’re almost certainly going to appear.

Don’t panic. In this feature, we reveal everything you need to know to find out if you’re on the list, what to do if you are, and how to lock down your accounts with free tools and online savvy. Let’s get a move on.

If you have already been hacked, skip to the “Emergency Actions” section. If you’ve come to this feature having read up on the recent releases of breached data, let’s look at a couple of ways to tighten up your online security.