Google has released a web-based password checker as part of its efforts to help identify when a user's login details is compromised, and thus alert the affected individual.
While Google had earlier made available a Chrome plugin dubbed Password Checkup, that also alert users when their login details have been compromised, whose information is found in their recent “Collections” leak, and prompt a warning for them to update their information. But the new password checker service will examine the username and password combinations saved in Chrome's password manager to be able to report on the authentication of the pairings whether it has been compromised in any third-party data breach made public.
Google will return the password checker results in an organized list of the accounts with already-compromised username-password pairs, with accounts for which the user have a shared password and accounts that are having very weak passwords, so as to show to the user where actions are required to safeguard the accounts.
It can be accessed at passwords.google.com, available for Chrome users who run the browser after logging into their Google account, which required them to synchronize data between their different devices.
The company also promised to launch a baked-in Chrome hacked-password alert system, that will automatically alert users whose details have been compromised, though it is not yet clear, if Chrome would have a similar to the Firefox Monitor which functions much like Troy Hunt’s Have I Been Pwned, allowing users to search login details on the service to know if their details were exposed in a data breach.
Troy Hunt's "Have I Been Pwned" service catalogs billions of emails exposed in data breaches, which Firefox Monitor API is granted access to the database, to afford users the ability to search their email address, and if exposed in a data breach, will be informed specifically, where and when the compromise took place.
Chrome 78 Beta, which is the build that leads to Stable, and the less-reliable Chrome 79 Canary for Windows and macOS, already sports the new password checker system, though it is hidden behind a setting on the options screen.
No comments