Since its inception in 2013, the website HaveIBeenPwned.com (HIBP) has grown exponentially – to the point where it is no longer feasible for one person to maintain, which is why Troy Hunt, the site’s creator, today announced that he is open to the possibility of an acquisition.
The prevalence of breaches, combined with the analysis he was doing and the scale of Adobe, is what sparked the idea for HIBP, Hunt said. “I wonder how many people know? Do they realize they were breached? Do they realize how many times they were breached? And perhaps most importantly, have they changed their password (yes, almost always singular) across the other services they use? And so Have I Been Pwned was born.”
In an exclusive interview with Infosecurity, Hunt joked that he has often been asked, "What would happen to the site if he were hit by a bus? ... Microsoft has my credit card, so the site would continue, but who would manage it?” Hunt said.
Fans of the site have applauded Hunt for “doing God’s work,” but the man is indeed a mere mortal. “It’s gotten to the point where the service has become enormously popular and the effort required to maintain it is exceeding my time availability,” Hunt said. “It’s also making it clear that there is a lot more to be done than I’m able to do on my own. There needs to be a better continuity plan than just one person doing this in their spare time.”
With 8 billion breached records included in its database, the site has nearly 3 million subscribers. “I’ve emailed those folks about a breach 7 million times, there are 120,000 people monitoring domains they’ve done 230,000 searches for and I’ve emailed them another 1.1 million times. There are 150,000 unique visitors to the site on a normal day, 10 million on an abnormal day, another couple of million API hits to the breach API and then 10 million a day to Pwned Passwords.”
Though there is no one organization Hunt is eyeing for acquisition, he did say that he will continue to be involved in the future of HIBP. “There's a heap of things I want to do with HIBP which I simply couldn't do on my own. This is a project with enormous potential beyond what it's already achieved and I want to be the guy driving that forward,” Hunt wrote.