Trilight Zone

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Identity-security firm TrustedID announced a free service on Tuesday that allows consumers to find out whether their credit-card or Social Security numbers have been stolen.

The service, StolenID Search, enables anyone to search through a database of 2.3 million account numbers that TrustedID and other companies have found online. The information is available online, but not necessarily searchable through other search engines, the company stated.

"The knowledge that your information has been compromised can be critically important in preventing identity theft," Scott Mitic, CEO and founder of TrustedID, said in a statement announcing the service. "The key is to find out about the compromise before the information is used to perpetrate a crime. Often, individuals are not even aware that their information has been breached, or that the breach may be ongoing."

Database compromises, lost laptops and consumer fraud have all led to significant data breaches in recent years. Last week, retail giant TJX--the owner of T.J.Maxx and Marshalls--and payment services firm MoneyGram both notified consumers that separate server breaches had exposed personal data. In December, the University of California, Los Angeles warned that a server containing information on about 800,000 students, faculty members and workers had been exposed by a compromise.

The 2.3 million account numbers are only a small fraction of the total number of credit cards and Social Security numbers compromised in recent years. Because the database is not complete, getting a negative result does not mean that the account has not been put at risk.