Cyber attacks, password breaches, and hacked online accounts have been recurring news for quite some time now. In the last decade alone, dozens of companies ranging from social media giants like Facebook and LinkedIn to software tycoons like Adobe became major victims of cyber attacks. Zoho is constantly monitoring these security-related incidents closely and have added an extra layer of security to protect your data. One such feature is the Breached Passwords Check.

What are breached passwords?  

You may know that hackers often try to hack into highly valuable companies to harm them. In that process they usually will get their hands on that company's users' data (Although Zoho has never faced any security-related issues, and the data you have stored with us is completely safe. We also do not sell your data to anyone.) They will publish those hacked user account credentials on the internet and even sell it to nefarious parties. Such passwords are called breached passwords. If the passwords for your online accounts have been exposed, this creates serious security issues.

For example, if you use the same account credentials that were compromised in previous data breaches to sign up for a social media account, there is a high chance that account might get hacked in the future. One of the first things hackers do when hacking a new account is to try passwords from previous third-party breaches. It is because they think that many people are too lazy to update their account credentials (which is often true).

Troy Hunt, an ethical hacker, has created a website called  Have I been pwned? that contains a database of breached passwords. If you are curious about whether your account credentials have been hacked in the past, you can visit his website.

How does Zoho protect you from breached passwords?  

Zoho understands the necessity of protecting you from such security incidents. We have enhanced our security to prevent you from using breached passwords for your Zoho account. When you sign up for a Zoho account or are resetting your password, the Breached Passwords Check feature will check if the password you have entered has already been breached, and prompt you to use a different password.

Zoho takes your security very seriously, and that's why we have introduced the Breached Passwords Check to protect your Zoho account from becoming compromised due to unrelated password breaches. You can further protect your Zoho account by installing Zoho OneAuth, an industry-standard application built for multi-factor authentication.