Garlik launches email checker in fight against ID theft

Garlik has launched a free email checker, Datapatrol, so that anyone concerned about becoming a victim of cybercrime can see if their email address has been stolen or copied online in the last 90 days.

The value to cyber criminals of hijacked email accounts is huge and is often the stepping stone to more serious fraud.

They can be used to try to harvest more information about a person for the purposes of identity theft, used to spam the real owner’s contacts list to send out malicious software, or to commit other cybercrimes.

If the email checker finds an account has been compromised, the owner is informed with a message immediately so they can try to retrieve their account and change log-in details.

No information provided for the email check will be retained by Garlik for any other purpose, and the information will only be used to perform the check requested.

The fraud prevention company hopes that by using this service it will encourage people to become more proactive about protecting themselves online; as well as act as an introduction to its Datapatrol identity fraud protection service.

Andy Thomas of Garlik explained that Datapatrol trawls the internet to see if people's personal data is insecure or has been compromised.