You Soon Won’t Need An Extension To Use Password Checkup
User data has become the most sort-after commodity within the tech world with big companies like Facebook and Google hoarding millions of petabytes personal user information.
It is not only big tech that wants your data, restaurants, car dealerships, banks, insurance companies all in one way or another are gathering personal user data which turn is used to drive innovation as the entities sort ways to improve their platforms and services.
However, as much as companies seek your data to improve the services they inturn offer you, they are inadvertently painting a target on their heads as hackers and individuals with malicious intent are also after the same resource.
In recent times, tech companies, even the big ones are finding it difficult to maintain the pace and intensity of attempted breaches as hackers keep coming after them like bloodhounds and in the process, compromising and stealing user information almost on a daily basis.
However, the mega-search company Google thinks if found a way to effectively fight back as it unveiled a tool that informs users if any of their passwords have been comprised — a precursor to a data breach– called Password Checkup.
The extension checks passwords and usernames against a logged list of already compromised usernames and passwords and informs users if their credentials have been compromised.
The extension has already reached over 650,000 downloads with 1.5 percent of overall sign-ins.password and username combination which is known to be compromised.
The company wants to take it a step further by having the security tool baked into Chrome. This will totally do away with the need to download the extension.
Furthermore, Google has already embedded the platform directly into its email platform and its function is to immediately inform users on occasions that their passwords have been compromised on other platforms, advice that they use stronger passwords, and warn against using simple phrases and lazy password combinations.
Weak and simple passwords are one of the reasons data breaches have become prominent but Google is hoping making Password Checkup more accessible will help mitigate this issue.
