In a blog post today, Google announced the addition of a significant security feature to Chrome, one that will alert users if their password has been stolen.
With new data breaches occurring and being reported on a near-daily basis, people’s usernames and passwords are increasingly showing up for sale on the dark web. With many people reusing passwords across websites, a single compromised website can leave individuals vulnerable across a myriad of sites and services.
First introduced earlier this year as an extension named Password Checkup, the feature has been rolled into Chrome’s settings as part of its Safe Browsing features.
“When you type your credentials into a website, Chrome will now warn you if your username and password have been compromised in a data breach on some site or app. It will suggest that you change them everywhere they were used.”
Google’s post also discussed improvements to Safe Browsing’s anti-phishing features.
“Google’s Safe Browsing maintains an ever-growing list of unsafe sites on the web and shares this information with webmasters, or other browsers, to make the web more secure. The list refreshes every 30 minutes, protecting 4 billion devices every day against all kinds of security threats, including phishing.
“However, some phishing sites slip through that 30-minute window, either by quickly switching domains or by hiding from our crawlers. Chrome now offers real-time phishing protections on desktop, which warn you when visiting malicious sites in 30 percent more cases. Initially we will roll out this protection to everyone with the “Make searches and browsing better” setting enabled in Chrome.”
These improvements are welcome additions to one of the most popular browsers in use and Google is to be commended for making Password Checkup an included feature, where more people will benefit from it.