Google on Wednesday introduced a new extension for its Chrome browser called Password Alert which aims to protect users against phishing attacks.
“To help keep your account safe, today we’re launching Password Alert, a free, open-source Chrome extension that protects your Google and Google Apps for Work Accounts. Once you’ve installed it, Password Alert will show you a warning if you type your Google password into a site that isn’t a Google sign-in page. This protects you from phishing attacks and also encourages you to use different passwords for different sites, a security best practice,” Drew Hintz, security engineer, and Justin Kosslyn, product manager, at Google Ideas said announcing the new extension.
The open-source extension works by alerting users before they enter account information on “phishing” pages, or imitation sites designed to steal passwords and access personal information, such as emails or online bank accounts. The new extension will show an alert and give user a chance to immediately reset the Gmail password when it finds the user is typing his or her Gmail password into a login page that’s not an actual Google login. In case of corporate users, their incident response team will be immediately notified if they have this extension configured.
Explaining how the extension works, Google noted that once the extension is installed, Chrome will remember a “scrambled” version of the user’s Google account password. The search giant however added that “it only remembers this information for security purposes and doesn’t share it with anyone.” The browser will show up an alert whenever users feed the same password on a phishing website.
Password Alert is available to consumers as well as to business customers of Google for Work, including Google Apps and Drive for Work.
To get started with Password Alert, users can visit the Chrome Web Store and download Password Alert for their Chrome Browser.
