Google took advantage of Safer Internet Day , the world day for a more secure Internet, to unveil an extension for its Chrome browser that queries databases containing billions of hacked accounts.
Yahoo!, Sony, Facebook , Orange or WhatsApp … There are countless security breaches that have affected millions of Internet users. Each time, hackers manage to seize personal data such as usernames and passwords, without you being informed. To find out if you are one of the victims,Google has released an extension for its Chrome browser .
Called Password Checkup , and launched on Safer Day InternetDay , it interrogates a huge database compiling some four billion usernames and passwords recovered in hacks. If your identifier or your password used on a site is in this database, the extension warns you and invites you, of course, to modify them.
Every time you connect to a site, the extension kicks in
Of course, the question arises as to whether this extension, which analyzes our browsing, could itself be hacked and at the same time transmit your login credentials to Internet sites (webmail,Facebook, banks, Amazon , etc.).
In the post that presents its extension , Google assures that the extension is encrypted from end to end, and that the comparison between personal data and the database multiplies the phases of ” hashing ” so that nothing is visible, both for Google but also for a third party. In addition, nothing is recorded online, and everything remains stored in the browser. Finally, if you plan to uninstall the extension, then all data is deleted, and there is no longer any trace of your login information.