Doesn't this sound terrifying? Imagine if one of your REAL passwords are in the subject or the content of a threatening email sent to you, just like that?
What do you do? Panic? Pay?
Well, the truth is that those emails got their "information" from security breaches that affected BILLIONS of user accounts in many different services all over the world so...
Don't panic or pay!
Trust me, it happened to me, but there was a "but..." that made it very clear they did not have as much information as they were arguing in their badly written email: They could not count on the fact that I hate porn (nothing against it, I just feel nauseated by it, sorry), so I knew that whoever was behind the threat was just shooting bullets in the dark based on the "average person".
After some research on line, including opening a topic at Games4TheWorld for help among other things, I found very useful information (and sites) that would calm me down and help me set up a strategy.
Without spending any money, you can visit a couple of websites like Have I Been Pwned? or Firefox Monitor and provide them with your email address(es), that way you will find out which leaks affected you, if any, and also show which information was compromised in those leaks.
It's always advisable to replace your passwords once in a while, but who has the time to go to thousands of websites, replacing them one by one?
Plus, if you don't use a password manager like KeePas (not sponsored by them or anybody else) or your browser built in tools, how can you remember even where you have created all your user accounts for the past year, or perhaps a decade or two??? đ˛
Well, it's hard work, and it will take you hours, days, for sure, unless you're a very organized person. There's no way around it, you need to replace all your important passwords (at least) with new ones, one by one đ¤Ļđģââī¸. It's impossible to just create and memorize one different password for each service, unless you use some sort of formula or if you have a fantastic memory!