Google’s new Chrome extension ensures your passwords are always secure

The web can be a dangerous place and you can never be sure that your important login information has been violated. Therefore, as part of the efforts of Safer Internet Day, Google launched a new Chrome extension that will ensure that your passwords are always protected and secure.

The web can be a dangerous place. With constant threats of phishing or malware, you can never be sure that your important login information has been violated. That's why, as part of Safer Internet Day on Tuesday, February 5, Google launched a new Chrome extension that will ensure that your passwords are always protected and secure.

The latest extension, known as Password Checkup, is available as a free download in the Chrome Web Store. It is based on an existing capability that automatically resets your Google password if it was determined to be part of a third-party data breach. Once installed, the extension scans a database of 4 billion compromised passwords and will alert you with a red dialog box and a warning in the address bar if you need to change one or more of your passwords. Otherwise, the extension will not alert you to other compromised information, such as an email address or a phone number. Google says that this is to ensure that these alerts are still processable and not informative.

Privacy may be a concern, but Google says that nobody can know the account or login data if you use this extension. He points out that he has taken advantage of privacy protection techniques with the help of cryptography researchers at both Google and Stanford University. That includes a four-step process, where the most important step is to store an anonymous version of passwords.

To link with the Password Checkup extension, Google is also introducing a new cross-account protection feature. Designed to be used by third-party developers and applications, this ensures that if your Google account is violated, any of your applications can send notifications to change your passwords. "We created Cross Account Protection working closely with other major technology companies, such as Adobe, and the standards community in the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) and the OpenID Foundation to make this easy for all applications," said Google.

The Google password verification extension would not be the first to guarantee that your passwords are secure, but it is one of the only free quality options. Currently, there is a wide variety of extensions, including 1Password, which is charged at $3 per month.