Security Logic

Discover how we check your password without ever knowing what it is.

1

Local Hashing

Your password is immediately transformed into a 40-character fingerprint using the SHA-1 algorithm. This happens on your device.

"password123" → 12345ABCDE...
2

Prefix Extraction

We only take the first 5 characters of that fingerprint. These 5 characters are common to thousands of different passwords.

[12345] 67890ABCDE...
3

The Range Query

We send those 5 characters to the Have I Been Pwned database. They return a list of every leaked hash that starts with those 5 characters.

Query: 12345
Response: [Suffix A, Suffix B...]
4

Local Match

Finally, we check if the rest of your fingerprint matches any suffix in that list. If it does, your password was found in a breach.

Match: 67890ABCDE?
Result: Found / Safe

Privacy First

This technique is called k-Anonymity. Because we only share 5 characters, the server never knows which specific password you're checking. Your actual password never leaves your browser.