What is a data breach?
A data breach occurs when sensitive information — such as email addresses, passwords, phone numbers, or financial data — is accessed, stolen, or published without authorisation. Breaches can affect anyone, from individuals to large organisations, and compromised credentials often end up for sale on dark web marketplaces within hours.
How does this check work?
When you enter your email address, AICS queries multiple breach intelligence databases using a privacy-preserving technique called k-anonymity. Only a partial, anonymised hash of your email is sent to our data providers — your full email address is never transmitted externally. Results are returned in seconds, showing whether your email has appeared in any known breach records.
What should you do if your data was found?
If your email was found in a breach, take action immediately: change your password on the affected service and any other account where you reused the same password, enable two-factor authentication wherever possible, and consider signing up for ongoing monitoring so you are alerted the moment your credentials appear in a new breach. Our step-by-step breach checklist walks through everything in detail. AICS membership includes automatic monthly scans, dark web monitoring, and a phishing email analyser to keep you protected. We outline our data handling in the data protection summary and the full Privacy Policy.
Why ongoing monitoring matters
Data breaches happen every day. A clean result today does not mean your data will not appear in a breach tomorrow. AICS membership continuously monitors your email across breach databases and dark web sources, sending you an instant alert if new exposure is detected — so you can act before attackers do.