Google Chrome will actively notify us of insecure or compromised passwords

This year Google has implemented Google Password Chekup for its Google Chrome browser. This add-on verifies whether the passwords we use are secure or not. If the credentials are not secure, because they are easy to discover or have been exposed in some data breach, notify us. This allows us to improve the security of our system in an easy and fast way.

Until now, it was an add-on not fully integrated into the most popular browser . Google will now integrate it starting with Google Chrome 79 to make it easier to use and improve user security. The browser will automatically indicate whether we are using secure credentials (passwords) or, conversely, if they are insecure or potentially compromised.

Increased password security in Chrome

We can now check our passwords using Google's Passwords feature . The process is quite simple and identifies vulnerable, reused, or insecure passwords. This allows for better management of our account security, especially for sensitive accounts like bank accounts or Amazon accounts.

What will be done now is an active background monitoring of credentials. Basically what Google does is verify that we do not use the password in two different accounts or that it has not been stolen in some hack. If you find any of these problems, the browser itself informs us of the incident.

To avoid misunderstandings, Google wants to make it clear that it is a private and secure process. They also make it clear that NOBODY, not even Google, will be able to crack verified usernames and passwords. It is simply an additional function to improve the safety of users.

Battling phishing

Another critical point is phishing, campaigns that try to steal our banking or social media details for illicit use. To avoid this type of incident, Google has added special functions to combat this practice. Any user logged into Chrome will enjoy this additional protection.

The new protection means that if we enter a protected password on an unusual site, Chrome notifies it. The browser will identify this process as potentially dangerous and will launch an alert.

What Google does is compare the site we are trying to access with a repository of websites classified as insecure or malicious. In the event that the web page is not in this file, we can access it with a full browser. An example of a secure site would be Facebook, our website, or another digital newspaper. Torrent aggregate pages, for example, could be classified as unsafe sites.