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Proton Mail is adding dark web monitoring to its paid Proton plan.
The feature will scan “hidden parts of the internet” for Proton Mail email addresses. If it finds yours, Proton Mail will send a security alert that includes actions you can take to mitigate your risk.
(Credit: Proton)Proton Mail’s Dark Web Monitoring will show you all of the breaches it knows about involving your accounts from the last two years, with a red indicator letting you know which ones potentially carry the highest risks. A high risk breach might be one that exposed your password, for instance, necessitating the need to change it quickly.
Proton notes that the number of data breaches in the US grew from 1,802 in 2022 to 3,205 last year, impacting more than 353 million people and making it the worst year yet for data breaches. In January, researchers found a database that exposed 26 billion records. Dubbed “the mother of all breaches” it worked as sort of a master list of all those previous breaches.
In the future, Proton Mail plans to also monitor custom domain emails and external email addresses as well as send notifications to your phone when your information is discovered in a breach so you can act on that information faster.
Find the dark web alerts via Proton Mail’s new Security Center as well as through your Security and Privacy settings. Proton’s paid email subscriptions start at $3.99 a month.