This Chrome Extension Warns You If a Website Has Recently Been Hacked
Chrome: Keeping track of the latest security information is tricky, and chances are you won’t give much thought to website hijacking unless you see a headline stating that a particular site or service has disclosed your username and password.
A new free service called HackNotice, created by Steve Thomas (co-founder of the now-disgraced PwnedList), gives you a handy way to stay up to date on whether a site you’re browsing in Chrome has recently been hacked. All you need is a simple Chrome extension launched earlier this month.
The premise of the extension is simple: visit a site on HackNotice’s ever-growing list of hacked sites and you will receive a small pop-up warning in your browser warning you of a hacked site. Click on it and you can go to the HackNotice list, which provides more information on what happened and links to relevant news articles.
While the app doesn’t warn you if a hack directly affected you – you’ll need something like PassProtect for that – you’ll at least get a warning that you might need to explore your favorite site (or sites).
My only problem with the HackNotice extension is that setting it up the first time is a bit of a headache. Install the extension in your browser and then visit the HackNotice website to create an account. When you do, you will be taken to a giant dashboard. Ignore this for now and click on “Settings” on the left sidebar of the site. Scroll down until you see the Chrome Browser Extension list and click Generate Key. This links the extension to your site account and seems like a necessary step before it can alert you to anything.
Copy the key, click the HackNotice extension icon next to the Chrome address bar, paste it, and click Submit. You will receive a small notification that it worked and you can return to your normal web browsing experience. If you see a notification in the lower right corner of the screen that the site you are visiting has been hacked, proceed with caution and possibly change your password just in case: