New Google Extension Checks Your Password Security

Password Checkup is a new extension for the Chrome browser from Google itself. The company aims to provide password security to users with this extension. Password Checkup will automatically check whether the users’ passwords have been leaked in a data breach. Once the extension is installed, users’ credentials are double checked against a database of almost four billion usernames and passwords. Users are warned if a match is found.

Google says that it supports these checks for “most” U.S. websites. Once the extension is added to the Chrome browser, the Password Checkup icon will appear in the browser bar. The icon will turn red and alert users that their credentials are unsafe due to a reach. If they’re in the clear, the extension will also inform them that none of their recently used passwords were detected in a data breach.

The caveat here is that this service can’t work unless your credentials are sent to Google. That might not seem like the safest thing to do in order to find the safety of your passwords. However, Google says that all transmissions are encrypted and that it can’t see the data itself. Any warning about compromised data is generated entirely locally to the user’s machine.

If you’d not like to have an extension constantly running your passwords through a database, perhaps use a service like https://haveibeenpwned.com/ for similar functionality.

Adnan Farooqui
Categories: Web
Tags: google chrome