Finds staff logins leaked online that still work, and forces a reset
TL;DR Leakhound watches breach dumps and malware logs for a company's staff email addresses, checks inside the customer's own directory whether each leaked password still works, and triggers a reset when it does. It's built for Indian firms with 200–2,000 staff and a thin IT team, sold directly or through managed service providers.
Leaked-login alerts are easy to buy and hard to act on. A domain search on the best-known public breach-check site costs from US$4.39 a month[1], and an Indian-origin threat-intel firm runs dark web monitoring and a free exposure checker[2].
So what does a small IT team actually get? A long list of addresses, most tied to old passwords, and no way to tell which ones still open a door. One US credential-recovery firm says more than two-thirds of organisations had an identity event last year[3].
The stakes in India keep going up. CERT-In wants listed incidents reported within six hours[4]. From May 2027 the DPDP Rules add breach notices to the Data Protection Board and to affected people, with penalties up to ₹250 Cr for weak safeguards[5][6].
Leakhound collects exposed credentials tied to a customer's domains from breach compilations and infostealer logs. The clever bit happens on the customer's side. A small connector compares each leaked password against the live account's stored hash in the company's directory or cloud identity service, and it never logs in anywhere to do it.
Only matches raise an alert, and the customer can set them to force a reset and kill sessions automatically. A scoring model ranks the rest by account privilege, how recent the leak is and whether the device was infected, so the IT lead sees five things to do and not five hundred.
The seed promised AI that predicts which leaked credential will get exploited. I couldn't find any public evidence that such prediction works, so I reframed it. Leakhound answers a narrower question with certainty - is this password still valid today? Testing leaked passwords by logging in would be unauthorised access, so the product never does that.
The user is the IT or security lead at a mid-size firm, say a hospital chain, an NBFC or a logistics company. The CFO or CEO signs the cheque. There's a global price anchor too - that breach-check site's plan for service providers starts at US$379 (about ₹36,700) a month[1]. Managed service providers that already run IT for dozens of Indian SMEs are the faster channel, because they can tack Leakhound onto a monthly contract they already have.
CERT-In's six-hour reporting rule has applied since 2022[4]. The DPDP Rules were notified on 13 November 2025, and the main duties kick in on 13 May 2027[5][6]. Boards that shrugged at password hygiene now face named penalties, and that turns a nice-to-have into a real line in the compliance budget.
I found no public figure for what India spends on credential monitoring. The signal is indirect. Global specialists sell this as a standalone product, and an Indian-origin threat-intel firm offers dark web monitoring and leaked-credential discovery[2][3]. The penalty ceilings in the DPDP schedule give mid-size firms a reason to set money aside for it[5].
An Indian-origin threat-intel firm monitors the deep and dark web and finds leaked credentials across a company's assets[2]. A US credential-recovery firm recaptures data from malware and phishing and automates the cleanup for enterprises[3]. The public breach-check site sells domain monitoring cheaply but leaves the action to you[1].
The gap is an affordable, India-priced tool that confirms validity on the customer's side and closes the loop with a reset.
| Difficulty | Moderate (45/100) |
| Starting capital | ₹1–2 Cr |
| Time to launch | 8–12 months |
The connectors and reset flows are standard engineering. Data is the hard part. You need fresh, legally obtained leak data at a price Indian customers will pay, and you need enough trust that a firm lets you install a connector right next to its password store, which is no easy ask.
No sector licence applies, but this idea sits close to two legal lines, so take them seriously before launch.
Building this outside India? The categories above usually have a local equivalent, so check with your own regulator.
Don't trust AI to guess whether a password still works. The hash check answers that with certainty. And never use a model to pick which leaks to test by logging in, because that crosses into unauthorised access.
Want to work out the AI layer for Leakhound? Talk to Yash →
If you have identity-security experience and can sell to managed service providers then this is a good fit. If you're hoping to resell alert feeds then skip it, that market is already cheap. Prove one thing first - across five pilot firms, at least one in twenty leaked logins still works and IT leads act on every confirmed match.
Roughly ₹1–2 Cr, because reputable breach data feeds, secure engineering and legal work all cost real money before the first sale.
No sector licence, but you must follow CERT-In directions, the DPDP Act and IT Act limits on access. Get a legal opinion on how you check leaked passwords.
Yes, leaks are global and the hash check works the same way. Data protection and computer misuse laws differ, so check locally.
The free Leakhound validation kit has the line-by-line capital breakdown, the effort scoring, the CERT-In and DPDP checklist, a 14-day validation sprint with pass/fail targets, a 90-day launch plan, 10 interview questions for IT leads and service providers, and 5 assumptions to test. Download the kit →
Thinking about building Leakhound or something close to it? The make-or-break work is sourcing leak data legally and earning enough trust to sit near the password store, and that's the kind of thing I help founders work through. If you need a hand, you know where to find me. Talk to Yash →
For illustration only. Names are fictional and ideas hypothetical; sourced facts are real but may be out of date. Nothing here is legal, financial or professional advice, and Yash Khatri is not personally liable for any use of it. Read the full disclaimer.