The founder of a widely-used database which people can use to check if their username and password credentials have been compromised online has launched a campaign to find a new buyer for the service.

Security researcher Troy Hunt is looking to sell Have I Been Pwned (HIBP) after struggling to cope with handling an explosion in the number of data breaches reported in recent months.

He's launched 'Project Svalbard' with the aim of finding a new home for the six-year-old tool in such a way that its altruistic reputation is preserved, and a swathe of new features can be added.

"It's time to go from that one guy doing what he can in his available time to a better-resourced and better-funded structure that's able to do way more than what I ever could on my own," Hunt said. "To be completely honest, it's been an enormously stressful year dealing with it all.

"The extra attention HIBP started getting in Jan never returned to 2018 levels, it just kept growing and growing. I made various changes to adjust to the workload, perhaps one of the most publicly obvious being a massive decline in engagement over social media."

Hunt insisted he wants to remain a part of the service following any acquisition, and that it should remain freely available to use. This is because its success, he said, can be attributed to there being no barriers to people searching for whether their data has been compromised now or in the past.