Google has been on an all out quest to make being online safer and today they have unveiled enhancements to the Chrome browser that just might achieve that goal. Now, it’s your responsibility to keep safe online, you need to be in control, you need to be aware, and you need to use long, strong and unique passwords everywhere you go, but that doesn’t mean Google can’t help.
Real-time password monitoring
Google has been offering Password monitoring first via their Password Checkup extension, and then via the Google Password Vault security checkup. Now Google has moved that feature into Chrome for real time monitoring of your passwords.
Going forward, when you enter your credentials into a website, Chrome will notify you if those credentials have been part of a security breach and prompt you to change them. What’s more Chrome will review all of your saved passwords and inform you if any other credentials are using that same compromised password, say goodbye to ImaMonk3y123, time to get a new password, many new passwords.
Phishing Protection
Google maintains a database of known unsafe sites that webmasters and browsers can use to keep you safe from phishing sites. Until now, that list had a 30 minute lag time between detecting new sites and those details making their way to users. Google has now made this service real time, meaning the minute a unsafe site is detected you’ll start seeing warning if you end up there.
Google’s other new phishing protection will warn you if you are entering user credentials into a potentially harmful site. While this feature has been around for a while it required users to be signed in and using Sync, as of today this feature will be applied regardless of if you are signed in to provide maximum user protection.
With bad actors getting more advanced it’s important that someone is sitting in our corner trying to battle the flood of online safety traps. If you’re not using long strong and unique passwords everywhere, it’s time you update your security habits.
