Breach database site Have I Been Pwned (HIBP) is going open source, and is teaming up with the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), according to a report by The Next Web.

HIBP is a website where users can check if their email or password has been found in a breach, with the site maintaining and updating a database of publicly available datasets. By making the site open source, others will be able to contribute in improving what the site does.

With the move, the site’s functions and database can be integrated into apps and services. An app with HIBP integration for example would be able to warn a user immediately if the email or password they’re using has already been compromised or previously spotted in an earlier breach.

The Next Web also reported HIBP would be teaming up with the FBI to improve the site’s own database of compromised credentials.

HIBP founder Troy Hunt said in a blog post that the FBI reached out to him, and they “began a discussion about what it might look like to provide them with an avenue to feed compromised passwords into HIBP and surface them via the Pwned Passwords feature.”

He says their goals are aligned, which is ” to protect people from account takeovers by proactively warning them when their password has been compromised.”

Compromised credentials will be fed into HIBP’s system “as they’re made available by the bureau,” with the end goal of ensuring that there’s an “ingestion route by which the data can flow into HIBP and be made available to consumers as fast as possible in order to maximize the value it presents,” said Hunt.

“We are excited to be partnering with HIBP on this important project to protect victims of online credential theft. It is another example of how important public/private partnerships are in the fight against cybercrime,” – said Bryan Vorndran, assistant director at the cyber division, of the FBI.

Hunt said that the first project would be to help build code for the “password ingestion” route from the FBI to HIBP, and asked for help from the community. Details can be found on his blog post. – Rappler.com