Thursday, October 8, 2020

Chrome for iOS and Android adds alert feature for compromised passwords

Google has added a password security alert feature on Chrome for both Android and iOS devices.

This new alert feature tells if the passwords that users asked Chrome to remember have been compromised and how to fix them.

It notifies whether users have compromised passwords on websites by adding support for “well-known/change-password” URLs to let Chrome take users directly to the right “change password” form after getting an alert. Also, Chrome adds Safety Check to mobile that tells if Safe Browsing is enabled on the device and whether the version of Chrome is updated with the latest security protections. iOS users may also use Chrome to autofill saved login details into other apps or browsers.

To check if you have any compromised passwords, Chrome sends a copy of your usernames and passwords to Google through a special form of encryption. Google checks lists of credentials known to be compromised but cannot derive a username or password from the encrypted copy.

Google will be launching these additional features soon on Chrome 86 to improve user security:

• Enhanced safe browsing for Android
• Improvements to passwords filling on iOS

Google will also release mixed form warnings and download blocking on Chrome 87 versions of desktop and Android to alert and warn users before submitting a non-secure form that’s embedded in a secured web page.