Website Health

Is Your Password Unsafe? Find out with Google’s Latest Tool

The Password Checkup extension can help keep your information secure.

computer screen with a password box

If you use the Google Chrome browser, there’s a new way to make your web surfing a little safer. The recently released extension, Password Checkup, will monitor your login information across various sites and cross compare it to potentially hacked username/password combinations. According to CNN, the extension was made through a group effort by cryptography experts at Stanford University and Google.

Here’s how Password Checkup works: When you log into a website (anything from your email to eBay account), it will compare your username and password to possibly breached information. The extension will access a database of over 4 billion username and password pairings that have been compromised and released by hackers. Some of the sources of this database include large data breaches (when Yahoo and LinkedIn were hacked in the past, for example). If your own username and password combination is similar to one that has been compromised, the Password Extension will give you a warning with a prompt to change your password.

Currently, Google can automatically reset users’ passwords for G-Suite apps and sites if there is the potential they’ve been exposed. But that’s why Password Checkup is so handy — it runs login information for any kind of website as long as you’re using Google Chrome as the browser. If you’re worried about the security of the extension itself, be assured that any username and password combinations it runs through the database are encrypted, meaning that, even if a breach were to happen, your information can’t be easily reached.

If you’re interested in learning more about site security and creating great passwords, check out our other blog posts on the topic; here are a few good ones:

Hayley

About Hayley

When Hayley isn’t knocking out website copy behind her laptop, she’s in the kitchen — a (non-snobby) foodie and committed vegan, she brings her passion for cooking into the office with pies and treats she’s made herself. Hayley polished her skills, both culinary and literary, at Cooking Light digital and MyRecipes.com, where she worked as a food writer before joining us here at Infomedia. She’s great at writing SEO-rich copy, drafting a catchy headline and utilizing digital tools to give her writing serious online impact. To unwind, Hayley likes watching horror movies, sweating the day away in hot yoga, traveling with her husband, Peter, and coming home to their two cats, Momo and Otto.

See more articles from Hayley Sugg

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