Google introduces new updates to keep users’ data secure

By Anuj Sharma - February 6, 2019
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You can take advantage of these new protections right away by installing the extension. Google has designed the new security updates to be extremely limited to protect your privacy.

Tech giant Google has introduced two new updates -- Password Checkup, a Chrome extension that helps protect your accounts from third party data breaches, and a new feature called Cross Account Protection. Both the updates will help keep your data secure, beyond just Google’s sites and apps.

‘We help keep your Google Account safe by proactively detecting and responding to security threats. For example, we already automatically reset the password on your Google Account if it may have been exposed in a third-party data breach -- a security measure that reduces the risk of your account getting hacked by a factor of ten,’ Google said in a blog post.

But, Google now wants to provide users with the same data breach protections for their accounts, beyond just Google apps and sites. This is where the new Password Checkup Chrome extension can help. If, Google detects that a username and password on a site you use is one of over four billion credentials that according to the search giant have been compromised, the extension will trigger an automatic warning and suggest that you change your password.

‘We built Password Checkup so that no one, including Google, can learn your account details. To do this, we developed privacy-protecting techniques with the help of cryptography researchers at both Google and Stanford University. For a more technical description of these innovations, check out our security blog post,’ added Google.

Google will be refining the Password Checkup over the coming months.

In the rare case that an attacker is able to find a way into your Google Account, we’ve built useful tools to help you quickly get back to safety. Unfortunately, these protections haven’t extended to the apps that you sign into with Google Sign In.

Cross Account Protection will help users by sending information about security events—like an account hijacking, for instance.

‘We created Cross Account Protection by working closely with other major technology companies, like Adobe, and the standards community at the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) and OpenID Foundation to make this easy for all apps to implement,’ Google emphasised.

 

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