Mozilla Monitor Plus, Protecting US Users From Data Breaches … For A Price

$9 A Month To Monitor 190 Data Broker Sites

Your first question might be why these data brokers, who sell people’s personal information gathered via breaches and users being a little too generous with their personal information when signing up for newsletters, coupons and other emailed requests, are even allowed to conduct business.  That is a very good question, which does not have a good answer. 

Since the root cause is apparently untouchable, there are services who monitor these data brokers to let you know when your personal info and possibly passwords go up for sale, and alert you to the fact.  In some cases they can get the data scrubbed, but generally it’s just an alert that changing your password is suddenly more than just a good idea.  The newest such service is Mozilla Monitor Plus, who scan a large number of those data brokers for you and walk you through what to do if your data is detected.  The service is only available in the US for the moment, and will run you $107.88 per year to sign up for.

That isn’t free, but is certainly a valuable service these days.  You can get a free scan if you sign up, though of course you will need to provide a fair amount of personal data, after all they need it to be able to search those databases to see if you are in there.  Mozilla will encrypt that data, but be aware it is yet one more place that could be targeted for attack.