One of Google Chrome’s biggest strengths is the wealth of ‘extensions’ that you get from the Chrome Web Store. There are so many extensions out there that do a number of things and this latest one is quite useful.
Yesterday was Safe Internet Day and Google released a Chrome extension that befitted the day.
Password Checkup is the Chrome extension in question, which checks if the username and password combination you enter in login forms were leaked online in past data breaches.
As you know, many people out there have multiple social media accounts as well as accounts with forums, institutions and more and they may use the same username and password combination for all. If your email address and password was leaked from a previous breach, it could result to your other accounts being compromised.
This is how the extension works. When you are about to log into an online service, it takes the username and password entered in the login form and checks them against a database of 4 billion credentials that Google engineers have collected from public breaches.
If your login credentials appear in the database, the extension will show you a popup that will alert you to change those problematic credentials.
This extensions sounds similar to Firefox Monitor but there are differences. Firefox Monitor works in conjunction with the Have I Been Pwned service but Google’s implementation works on an internal database. Recently, the Have I Been Pwned service added an extra 773 million usernames and 21 million passwords to their database, so you can imagine how extensive this leaked situation is.
This is a crucial extension to have if you use Google Chrome frequently on desktop. You can download and install this extension from the Chrome Web Store here.
