WebProNews

Tag: Safe Browsing

  • New Chrome Feature Will Alert You If Your Password Is Stolen

    New Chrome Feature Will Alert You If Your Password Is Stolen

    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.

  • Google Adds Data on Unsafe Websites to Transparency Report

    Google is adding a new section to its online Transparency Report, which currently documents data requests from the government, content removal requests, and just recently, National Security Letter information.

    Starting now, Google will show information on malware and phishing attacks around the web. Google says that this info comes from their Safe Browsing program, which has been finding and flagging unsafe websites since 2006.

    Google’s new page in the Transparency Report on Safe Browsing displays a bunch of new graphs related to the volume of alerts, malware sites, phishing sites, and more. Specifically, users can now see how many users see browser warnings in a given week, how many unsafe websites (in the form of both malware and phishing) are detected by Google each week, how many sites hosting malware Google detects each week, and webmaster response time averages once they are informed of problems with their sites.

    “[I]n 2006 we started a Safe Browsing program to find and flag suspect websites. This means that when you are surfing the web, we can now warn you when a site is unsafe. We’re currently flagging up to 10,000 sites a day—and because we share this technology with other browsers there are about 1 billion users we can help keep safe,” says Google software engineer Lucas Ballard. “Sharing this information also aligns well with our Transparency Report, which already gives information about government requests for user data, government requests to remove content, and current disruptions to our services.”

  • Is Your Mobile Device Secure?

    Mobile devices today are used for just about everything. From gaming to social networking to banking to office tasks – nearly anything you need to do, you can do it on your mobile device. It’s funny to think about, but the phone features are almost secondary with some users.

    Kevin Mahaffey, the CTO and Co-founder of Lookout Mobile Security, told us that mobile devices have evolved from telephones to computers that we can put into our pockets.

    “Mobile devices are gaining a whole new level of importance in the world,” he said. “They know who you are, who you talk to, [and] they might even have financial and location information about you.”

    Because the functions of mobile devices have created ease and convenience for consumers both in their professional and personal lives, most users don’t think about being in danger of security attacks. However, according to security software vendor Trusteer, mobile users are three times more vulnerable to phishing attacks than desktop computer users are. This is a pretty unsettling stat, isn’t it?

    How secure do you feel in the transactions that you do on your mobile device? Let us know.

    Mahaffey told us that users are susceptible to three primary types of attacks: phishing, drive-by downloads, and exploits. At this point, the phishing attacks are the most common with scammers offering links that would compromise confidential information.

    Drive-by downloads, which occur when a site tricks users to download something without seeking consent, are also beginning to gain some traction on mobile devices. Exploits are also a concern for mobile since a bad site could use a flaw in the browser or software to gain control over the device.

    What’s more, Mahaffey said that we could expect these attacks to increase as more devices come to the market. Consumers are also feeling more comfortable with their mobiles, which means that they are becoming more risky in their behavior.

    “Now that everyone’s reading email, browsing the Web, [and] downloading apps, there are a large number of ways that the bad guys can get in,” he said.

    For these reasons, Lookout Mobile Security recently introduced Safe Browsing to help protect users from scammers. The technology scans every url a user visits to check for any malicious activity. The interesting thing is that, unless it detects something, a user would never know it was there.  It also doesn’t impact the browsing speed for users.
    If the technology does detect something, it gives a warning message to the user. From there, the user can decide whether or not it wants to continue.

    As part of this launch, Lookout also announced a partnership with Sprint that will bring the Safe Browsing protection to Sprint users. Mahaffey said Lookout’s goal was to “make people happy and more confident in their phones,” which they believe is furthered by this partnership.

    In terms of basic security advice, he told us that users should be careful about what they click on and where they download apps. He recommends determining if the developer is reputable, if the app is safe, and if the area of the Internet is shady. In addition, he points out that users should check their phone bill since scammers might try to slip in extra charges.

    Does this information make you hesitant about using your mobile device for everything?