BreachGuard
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Understanding what happens after a data breach can help you make better decisions about your accounts, passwords, and personal information.
01
A data breach occurs when information held by an organization is accessed, exposed, or disclosed without authorization. Depending on the incident, exposed information may include email addresses, usernames, passwords, or other personal data.
BreachGuard checks whether an email address appears in known breach records provided by its configured breach-data source.
Important: A result depends on the coverage of the breach-data provider. A clean result does not guarantee that an email has never appeared in a breach.
02
Credential exposure means that account-related information, such as an email address, username, or password, has appeared in exposed data associated with a breach.
The type of information exposed matters. An exposed email address and an exposed password do not present the same level of risk.
This is why BreachGuard considers data sensitivity when calculating its risk score.
03
Reusing the same password across multiple services creates a connection between your accounts. If that password is exposed in one breach, attackers may attempt to use it on other services.
What to do
04
Multi-factor authentication (MFA) adds another verification step when signing in to an account. Instead of relying only on a password, the account may require an additional factor such as an authentication app, security key, or another supported verification method.
Why it matters
MFA can provide additional protection when a password has been compromised.
What to do
Enable MFA on important accounts whenever the service supports it.
05
If your email appears in a known breach:
Change affected passwords
Change passwords associated with affected accounts, especially if the exposed information includes passwords.
Stop reusing passwords
If the same password is used elsewhere, change it on those accounts too.
Enable MFA
Turn on multi-factor authentication for important accounts where available.
Review your accounts
Look for unusual activity, unfamiliar login attempts, or unexpected account changes.
Stay alert
Be cautious of suspicious emails, messages, and links that may attempt to take advantage of exposed information.
06
0 – 100
BreachGuard uses a transparent 0–100 heuristic score. The score considers three factors:
Breach frequency
How many known breaches contain the email.
Recency
How recently the most relevant breach occurred.
Data sensitivity
What types of information were exposed.
Risk levels
The BreachGuard score is an educational heuristic designed to communicate relative exposure. It is not a certified security assessment.
07
No known breach found
If BreachGuard does not find your email in the breach records checked, it means no matching record was found in the available breach-data source.
It does not guarantee that your email has never been exposed.
Continue to:
08
BreachGuard is designed for breach awareness and risk communication. It does not continuously monitor accounts or provide real-time breach alerts.
It does not ask users for passwords and does not require an account to perform a lookup.