Google has created a free security extension for Google Chrome users called Password Alert. Released last Wednesday, this new tool can warn you if you will be logging in into any websites other than accounts.google.com, and may prompt you to change your password immediately if necessary. Password Alert also checks the HTML of each website you visit and determines if it is an illegal or fake Google sign-in page, so that it can notify you before you complete typing your password.
This illegal attempt of acquiring personal sensitive information like usernames, security passwords, social security numbers and even credit card details for malicious reasons by pretending to be a reliable log-in page is known as phishing. Some phishing techniques include a user receiving an email from a company or individual posing as a legal entity to make the user enter his account details on a hacking webpage.
The Password Alert extension somehow imparts a logical advice to have different passwords every time you create an account and to change passwords periodically for stronger security functions. It also minimizes the risk of being phished.
Phishing continues to be one of the most rampant and critical problems in terms of information security. Based on a report from Google, 2 percent of all Gmail messages it verifies are phishing attempts and approximately 45 percent of some well-crafted phishing emails can successfully deceive users. Just earlier this month, a phishing campaign has been launched against a target corporation or agency, and with just one gullible user, hackers gain an initial point of compromise within as little as 80 seconds, according to a Verizon report.
With Password Alert installed on your Google Chrome, every time you need to log in into a non-Google webpage, a pop-up message will come into your screen telling you that your password has been compromised and instructs you to change your password or to one-time ignore the webpage with an option to always ignore the website for your trusted websites like Facebook or Amazon.
Password Alert is a free security tool, and an extension that is easy to install. Just visit the Chrome Web store, and it will ask you for confirmation to add Password Alert, and then press Add. That's it. Another pop-up message will remind you that you need to log in so that the extension can take effect. It is just a small file of 403 kilobytes and is currently available in 53 languages.
