Google’s New Tool Alerts When You Use Compromised Credentials On Any Site

Feb 5, 2019

With so many data breaches happening almost every week, it has
become difficult for users to know if their credentials are already
in possession of hackers or being circulated freely across the
Internet.

Thankfully, Google has a solution.

Today, February 5, on Safer Internet Day, Google launches a new
service that has been designed to alert users when they use an
exact combination of username and password for any website that has
previously been exposed in any third-party data breach.
^[1]

The new service, which has initially been made available as a free
Chrome browser extension called Password Checkup, works by
automatically comparing the user’s entered credential on any site
to an encrypted database that contains over 4 billion compromised
credentials.

If the credentials are found in the list of compromised ones,
Password Checkup will prompt users to change their password.

Wondering if Google can see your login credentials? No, the
company has used a privacy-oriented implementation that keeps all
your information private and anonymous by encrypting your
credentials before checking them against its online database.

“We designed Password Checkup with privacy-preserving technologies
to never reveal this personal information to Google,” the company
emphasizes. “We also designed Password Checkup to prevent an
attacker from abusing Password Checkup to reveal unsafe usernames
and passwords. Finally, all statistics reported by the extension
are anonymous.”

You can also check this easy 4-step visual
explanation to learn more about how it works under the
hood.
Moreover, it is not yet another “weak password warning tool” that
alerts users whenever they use a commonly used or easily crackable
password for any website.

“We designed Password Checkup only to alert you when all of the
information necessary to access your account has fallen into the
hands of an attacker,” Google says.

“We will not bother you about outdated passwords youn have
already reset or merely weak passwords like ‘123456.’ We only
generate an alert when both your current username and password
appear in a breach, as that poses the greatest risk.”

The Chrome browser extension, Password
Checkup, is available from today, and anyone can download it
for free.

Besides launching the new Chrome extension, Google also lists
five Official Security Tips which includes keeping your software
up-to-date, using unique passwords for every site, taking the
Google security checkup, setting up a recovery phone number or
email address, and making use of two-factor authentication.

Chrome users can follow these security tips to keep themselves
safe on the Internet.

^[2]^[3]

References

^{^}
launches
(security.googleblog.com)
^{^}
4-step visual explanation
(1.bp.blogspot.com)
^{^}
Password Checkup
(chrome.google.com)

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OWASP TOP !0

Injection. Injection flaws, such as SQL, NoSQL, OS, and LDAP injection, occur when untrusted data is sent to an interpreter as part of a command or query. The attacker’s hostile data can trick the interpreter into executing unintended commands or accessing data without proper authorization. Broken Authentication. Application functions related to authentication and session management are often implemented incorrectly, allowing attackers to compromise passwords, keys, or session tokens, or to exploit other implementation flaws to assume other users’ identities temporarily or permanently. Sensitive Data Exposure. Many web applications and APIs do not properly protect sensitive data, such as financial, healthcare, and PII. Attackers may steal or modify such weakly protected data to conduct credit card fraud, identity theft, or other crimes. Sensitive data may be compromised without extra protection, such as encryption at rest or in transit, and requires special precautions when exchanged with the browser. XML External Entities (XXE). Many older or poorly configured XML processors evaluate external entity references within XML documents. External entities can be used to disclose internal files using the file URI handler, internal file shares, internal port scanning, remote code execution, and denial of service attacks. Broken Access Control. Restrictions on what authenticated users are allowed to do are often not properly enforced. Attackers can exploit these flaws to access unauthorized functionality and/or data, such as access other users’ accounts, view sensitive files, modify other users’ data, change access rights, etc. Security Misconfiguration. Security misconfiguration is the most commonly seen issue. This is commonly a result of insecure default configurations, incomplete or ad hoc configurations, open cloud storage, misconfigured HTTP headers, and verbose error messages containing sensitive information. Not only must all operating systems, frameworks, libraries, and applications be securely configured, but they must be patched/upgraded in a timely fashion. Cross-Site Scripting XSS. XSS flaws occur whenever an application includes untrusted data in a new web page without proper validation or escaping, or updates an existing web page with user-supplied data using a browser API that can create HTML or JavaScript. XSS allows attackers to execute scripts in the victim’s browser which can hijack user sessions, deface web sites, or redirect the user to malicious sites. Insecure Deserialization. Insecure deserialization often leads to remote code execution. Even if deserialization flaws do not result in remote code execution, they can be used to perform attacks, including replay attacks, injection attacks, and privilege escalation attacks. Using Components with Known Vulnerabilities. Components, such as libraries, frameworks, and other software modules, run with the same privileges as the application. If a vulnerable component is exploited, such an attack can facilitate serious data loss or server takeover. Applications and APIs using components with known vulnerabilities may undermine application defenses and enable various attacks and impacts. Insufficient Logging & Monitoring. Insufficient logging and monitoring, coupled with missing or ineffective integration with incident response, allows attackers to further attack systems, maintain persistence, pivot to more systems, and tamper, extract, or destroy data. Most breach studies show time to detect a breach is over 200 days, typically detected by external parties rather than internal processes or monitoring.

Google’s New Tool Alerts When You Use Compromised Credentials On Any Site

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