November 28, 2017
By Larry Loeb 2 min read

Cybersecurity education and security awareness have been important components of security for some time, but it’s never been easy to get companies to buy into the effort. One web browser is making an effort to change that.

Cybersecurity Education Takes Center Stage

Mozilla is working to integrate the data breach service Have I Been Pwned into Firefox’s user interface (UI). According to GitHub, Mozilla aims to use the service to alert users about data breaches and provide them with a bit of cybersecurity education.

Have I Been Pwned is a widely respected site run by Australian security researcher Troy Hunt. Its integration into a browser will alert users to data breaches that have led to credential leaks, potentially preventing Firefox users from falling prey to attacks.

Users will be automatically notified when they enter a site that has been recently breached. The browser will also offer a “Learn more” link when alerting users so that they can access additional information about data breaches within the Firefox UI. Those who are interested can then choose to join a service that will notify them about when they might be affected by future breaches, the information on GitHub explained.

Maintaining Data Security

According to Infosecurity Magazine, Hunt expressed some concerns about preserving data security during the process. “What I can say for sure is that no passwords will be involved here — I don’t store them nor do I provide any means of querying them, and I won’t be providing them to anyone else either,” he noted.

Mozilla is sensitive to these privacy issues. The company is working to determine who the custodian of this data will be and how it can offer functionality to users who opt out of subscribing to notifications. As noted by InfoSecurity Magazine, “While the project is still in infancy, the idea is to offer as much utility as possible while respecting the user’s privacy.”

It remains to be seen if Have I Been Pwned will make a big difference for Firefox users, but it’s a step in the right direction for a more secure future.

 |  |  |  |  |  | 
Larry Loeb
Principal, PBC Enterprises

More from

September 28, 2023

Vulnerability resolution enhanced by integrations

2 min read - Why speed is of the essence in today's cybersecurity landscape? How are you quickly achieving vulnerability resolution?Identifying vulnerabilities should be part of the daily process within an organization. It's an important piece of maintaining an organization’s security posture. However, the complicated nature of modern technologies — and the pace of change — often make vulnerability management a challenging task.In the past, many organizations had to support manual integration work to get different security systems to ‘talk’ to each other. As…

September 28, 2023

How I got started: SIEM engineer

2 min read - As careers in cybersecurity become increasingly more specialized, Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) engineers are playing a more prominent role. These professionals are like forensic specialists but are also on the front lines protecting sensitive information from the relentless onslaught of cyber threats. SIEM engineers meticulously monitor, analyze and manage security events and incidents within an organization. They leverage SIEM tools to aggregate and correlate data, enabling them to detect anomalies, identify potential threats and respond swiftly to security…

September 27, 2023

Tequila OS 2.0: The first forensic Linux distribution in Latin America

3 min read - Incident response teams are stretched thin, and the threats are only intensifying. But new tools are helping bridge the gap for cybersecurity pros in Latin America.IBM Security X-Force Threat Intelligence Index 2023 found that 12% of the security incidents X-force responded to were in Latin America. In comparison, 31% were in the Asia-Pacific, followed by Europe with 28%, North America with 25% and the Middle East with 4%. In the Latin American region, Brazil had 67% of incidents that X-Force…

September 27, 2023

Cost of a data breach 2023: Geographical breakdowns

4 min read - Data breaches can occur anywhere in the world, but they are historically more common in specific countries. Typically, countries with high internet usage and digital services are more prone to data breaches. To that end, IBM’s Cost of a Data Breach Report 2023 looked at 553 organizations of various sizes across 16 countries and geographic regions, and 17 industries. In the report, the top five costs of a data breach by country or region (measured in USD millions) for 2023…

© 2023 IBM Contact Privacy Terms of use Accessibility Cookie Preferences
Sponsored by si-icon-eightbarfeature