As you have probably heard, 1.4 billion usernames, passwords, and emails were leaked on the darknet. This wasn’t a new breach, but rather a collection of previous leaks all put together in one place, forming one of the largest consolidated databases ever discovered.

Affected people are those with accounts on sites such as Netflix, Bitcoin, LinkedIn, Badoo, Pastebin, Last.FM, RedBox, Anti Public, Exploit.in, Minecraft, Zoosk and MySpace. The discovered passwords are not encrypted, and tests indicate that most of those listed in the database are still valid, meaning the risk of those accounts being hijacked is high. And now you are left wondering: are my logins one of those 1.4 billion? And if so, what should I do?

Introducing the new Password Guardian

While Avast Passwords is included in Avast Free Antivirus and makes it easy to manage and autofill your login information to websites, you can upgrade to Avast Passwords Premium and make full use of a new password security feature: Password Guardian. It monitors the web and tells you the moment a website has been hacked and your accounts become vulnerable. When that happens, you can just change your password and relax.

How does it work?

1. Download Avast Free Antivirus and start using Avast Passwords.
   
   
   
2. Import your credentials. For your security, Avast Passwords also imports your login credentials that you store in Chrome and Firefox browsers, which are risky places to store your passwords. Once you start using Avast Passwords, you no longer need to store passwords in your browsers.  
3. Save all new login credentials. When you set up a new account on a new website you visit, Avast Passwords will prompt you to save that info. Confirm this, and those credentials are then encrypted, so the next time you log in, they will autofill.
   
   
   
4. Upgrade to Avast Passwords Premium -- you’ll get the Password Guardian feature that monitors the internet and warns you if a website has been hacked and your accounts are vulnerable.
5. Optional:  To use passwords on multiple devices, you can easily sync the passwords on your computers and phones. Avast Passwords does this securely using both symmetric and asymmetric cryptography encryption with AWS-256, providing military-strength security to store and sync all your credentials.    
6. Optional - for additional security: Set up a Master Password which will be the password key to all your passwords. This is the only password you will need to input from now on. All others are protected (encrypted).

Additional Security Tips

• Do not use the same password across different sites and services. Use strong, random passwords with uppercase and lowercase letters, numbers, and symbols. These are fun to create when you don’t have to remember them. Avast Passwords does all that heavy lifting for you...and it’s free and easy.  
• Learn whether or not the email address you use to sign in to various accounts and services has leaked to the internet by checking the Avast Hack Check tool.
• For an extra layer of security, use 2-factor authentication whenever it's available.