Google to offer free dark web monitoring, but your data is already there and may be at risk

Your personal data, including passwords, credit card numbers, and other online account information, is likely available on the dark web, waiting to be exploited if it hasn't already been.

You probably won’t even realize it until it’s too late and one of your email or social media accounts has been compromised or your credit card has been fraudulently used.

Google, one of the world's largest technology companies, will begin offering free dark web monitoring reports to all users from later this month as part of its efforts to support its users.

The service was primarily available to paid subscribers of Google One, its enhanced security and storage service, and to users of its email platform, Gmail. The service will be available in at least 46 countries and territories, including Canada, where it is already available to Google One and Gmail users.

Cybersecurity experts have hailed the move as a step forward for people to protect themselves online, but warned that more needs to be done by individual users and tech companies to protect personal information.

WATCH | How Cybercriminals Buy Hacked Data on the Dark Web: How Your Personal Information Ends Up on the Dark WebThe dark web is a haven for people looking to exploit your personal information. Ethical hacker Terry Cutler explains what the dark web is and how little cybercriminals are willing to pay for hacked data.

Anne Kavukian, Ontario's former privacy commissioner, said threats to privacy and the misuse of personal information are only growing.

But she said Google offering its dark web monitoring for free would be a “huge benefit” to individual users to prevent their data from being stolen or misused.

“Once in the wrong hands, it can have harmful effects later on,” she said. “It can also be used in ways we can't even imagine.”

Here's what you need to know about dark web surveillance and how vulnerable most of us are to privacy violations.

What is the Dark Web?

The Dark Web is a term that is always heard in the news whenever a big company or website gets hacked.

This is the “dark side of internet crime,” says Terry Cutler, an ethical hacker who is hired by companies to break into systems and find security flaws and weaknesses.

He said that while the dark web is not easily accessible to everyone – ironically, it requires the use of special software called the Tor Browser, which protects privacy on the internet – it is also a place where cybercriminals can buy and sell troves of stolen data (along with guns, drugs and many other illegal supplies).

How often does stolen data appear on the dark web?

Cutler said that by the time companies realize and warn their customers, hackers could operate undetected within servers for weeks or even months, slowly stealing millions of email addresses, passwords and other data.

This year has seen several significant cybersecurity incidents in which stolen personal information was leaked onto the dark web.

VIDEO | Ticketmaster urges customers to take action after new security breach: Ticketmaster hack believed to have affected millions Ticketmaster is urging customers to take action after a new security breach exposed personal information. The company said those who purchased tickets between April 2 and May 18 are most likely to be affected.

Ticketmaster notified Canadian customers this week that personal and credit card information may have been stolen in a major breach, and offered them a year of credit monitoring services. Hackers previously claimed to have stolen and exposed information from more than 500 million Ticketmaster accounts worldwide.

Retailer London Drugs closed 79 stores across Western Canada in the spring after falling victim to a ransomware attack in which hackers stole digital files from the company's headquarters and published some employee data on the dark web in an attempt to force the company to pay a $25 million ransom.

Earlier this month, cybersecurity researchers from the website CyberNews discovered roughly 10 billion unique passwords in what appears to be the largest single collection of passwords leaked from a series of old and new breaches.

WATCH | Cybersecurity experts discuss impact of London Drugs ransomware attack: London Drugs details ransomware attack Roger Gale, industrial network cybersecurity program director at BCIT, discusses the impact of the London Drugs ransomware attack. The company said the attack may have exposed some employee information. The retail chain closed 79 stores for a week due to the attack.

Cutler said most people have weak passwords or use the same passwords for multiple accounts, making it highly unlikely that hackers or cybercriminals will be able to find a way into accounts on other platforms and gain access to even more sensitive information, like social security numbers or other identification documents that can be used to set up fraudulent credit cards or access bank accounts.

How does dark web monitoring work?

Cutler's company, Cyology Labs, offers dark web monitoring services, and in an interview with CBC News, he demonstrated how it works, using the email suffix @cbc.ca.

A scan of the leaked password database on the dark web quickly revealed more than 1,000 exposed passwords linked to email addresses of current and former CBC employees – passwords that were entirely hidden from CBC News.

“It's not that CBC was hacked, it's that somehow a database that used cbc.ca as an email was compromised,” he said.

Google's Dark Web Monitoring will allow Google Account users to see if their personal Gmail address, name, mailing address, phone number, or username has appeared in a data breach that has appeared on the dark web.

CBC News tested Google's Dark Web Monitor using a personal Gmail account, and a scan found that the email address had been used in 11 breaches between 2016 and 2023, two of which contained passwords for other accounts linked to the email.

Once Google's Dark Monitoring Report is widely available, account users will be able to set up alerts to be notified via email or pop-up message if their personal information has been leaked, and will be guided through recommendations to improve security, such as changing their password or setting up two-step verification.

CBC News tested Google's dark web monitoring tool using a personal Gmail address and found that the address was found 11 times in breach data available on the dark web. (Screenshot/Google One) What else can you do?

Cutler said ordinary people generally don't think their information is important enough to have it stolen, but hackers are targeting exactly those people, and he said hackers should take proper precautions for their online accounts, such as creating difficult passwords and changing them regularly.

But Kavukian said companies, whether they're technology companies, big retailers or employers, should take greater responsibility for the personal data they protect.

“I think it's asking too much to expect the average user to know what happens to their personal information once they're online. It's a very complex issue,” she said.

WATCH | Former Privacy Commissioner explains why companies need to do more to protect users' personal information: Don't get complacent about privacy. If data gets into the wrong hands, it could become a problem later, says former Ontario Privacy Commissioner Anne Cavoukian. She explains why companies need to do more to protect users' personal information and why privacy shouldn't be abandoned.

She hopes other major companies will follow Google's example and offer services such as free dark web monitoring to their users and customers.

She said people whose personal information has already been exposed should contact the companies that were hacked — some of which offer free support services for a limited period of time — and also consider filing a complaint with their state or federal privacy commission.

Kavukian said the most important thing is to draw as much attention as possible to potential fraud and misuse of personal information.

“We don't want to give up our privacy,” she said.

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