- Google Chrome is testing automatic password changes that would follow data breaches
- Google is calling this an ‘AI innovation’, but I’m not convinced
- Chrome already generates and stores passwords, plus checks databases for compromise passwords, and this would put those all together… using an algorithm… maybe?
Google Chrome could be about to implement AI tools to identify passwords found in data breaches, as well as being able to generate and store stronger alternatives.
That’s according to Twitter user Leopeva64, who found the feature in a Chrome Canary test build (via Ars Technica), writing, ‘Another AI-powered feature is coming to Chrome, “Automated password change,” the description mentions that “when Chrome finds one of your passwords in a data breach, it can offer to change your password for you when you sign in’.
That sounds nifty on paper, though it’s worth noting that the best password managers such as Bitwarden and Nordpass have implemented similar features before; so it’s reasonable to suggest that ‘AI’, whatever that umbrella term means here, isn’t actually living up to what Google is calling an ‘innovation’ here.
Chrome’s password ‘AI innovation’
Leaked password databases like ‘Have I Been Pwned’ have previously fulfilled this function, and aGoogle Chrome already uses this repository to inform users when their passwords have been compromised without resorting to ‘AI’.
Password generation is also a feature common to essentially every password manager under the sun, and storing those passwords for easy access (which Google Chrome has also done for some time) is literally the point of having a password manager; they do what they say on the tin!
It’s entirely possible that Chrome’s process of generating passwords is different – and, perhaps, more secure – using some kind of algorithm, but until security researchers explore this, the change amounts to Chrome offering to change a user’s password immediately following a breach. It’s convenient, but I’m also thinking – this is nothing new, and, truthfully, neither is putting ‘AI’ in the feature description.
In case you missed it, Google recently announced that the Enhanced Protection mode in its Chrome web browser’s Safe Browsing settings is protecting 1 billion users (via 9To5Google) from phishing and malware attacks.
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luke.hughes@futurenet.com (Luke Hughes)
