Google Thyself

[TheBaken]

I'm not sure exactly how to ask this - are they any legitimate services out on the web that will do penetration testing on a personal identity and let you know what the weak links are so you can close them? I think that I've been fairly careful over the years of what I've posted and allowed to get online, but I'm curious if there are any companies that won't leak your information after the fact that can tell you what security holes they were able to find on you on the web. I've done the standard fare of googling myself and making sure I don't turn up in any databases of posted SSNs or password/username combos; I'm thinking something a little bit more in depth than that.

 

For example, I don't care if my forum name can be linked to my real identity by someone doing a background check on me; that's not my concern. However, I'd prefer to know if one of the forums I frequented back in the late 90s or early 2000s where I may have stupidly entered in my full contact information and not-faked security questions were hacked by bored script kiddies, meaning that anyone who wants to take the time to try to crack current services that don't require MFA can potentially have access to them by password resetting in. The catch is, I don't want to mistakenly hire some anon that's just going to leak all of my stuff out on the web after I've paid them; are there any vetted services that could do something like this that people have used in the past? I would think that they would have to exist for people who want to get sensitive corporate security clearances, but I'm not interested in someone doing that type of interviewing, just working out if I have any weak links in my digital footprint that someone could potentially take malicious advantage of.

 

Any suggestions?

[VincentC]

Hire a Private Investigator on yourself then close the resources that he used to find you.

[ForsakenLive]

Basically anyone having access to these databases can harm you.

You saw all the Sony, Adobe and Walmart hacks, there were basically torrents and blogs that had all the info it was obtained during the attack, posted by the hackers. Now these companies have a fairly modern infrastructure and trust me when I say there are lots and lots of companies that have much worse security. Even government websites sometimes have lots of holes on them. A decent networking professional (sometimes a newb) can take a sneak peak and find your information on a list together with thousands of other users.

 

The info out there about you that should concern you is the one you gave to other companies, not the one that you posted yourself, as you are careful with the personal data you handle.

[Enderman]

Even if you did find stuff about yourself its not like you can remove it.

Everything on the internet stays there. If you are really that paranoid you should change your name and identity, move to another country, and never go on the internet again.

[TetraSky]

Glad I never put my actual info anywhere that can be considered "public".

[awesomes8wc3]

Pretty much everything about me is on the internet apart from my address.