Google Chrome enhances user security with real-time Safe Browsing update

SECURITY

Google LLC today announced enhancements to its popular Chrome browser that bring new real-time protection to users through the browser’s Safe Browsing feature.

Safe Browsing was launched by Google back in 2005 to protect users from identity and phishing attacks by warning users in the browser when they visit malicious sites. That protection is now getting a massive boost, with Google bringing real-time protection to Safe Browsing and new password protections.

The previous Standard protection mode of Safe Browsing used a list stored on a user’s device to check if a site or file was known to be potentially dangerous. However, the list was only updated every 30 to 60 minutes, while Google has found that the average malicious site actually exists for less than 10 minutes.

With the upgrade, the Standard protection mode for Chrome on desktop and iOS will now check sites in real-time against Google’s server-side list of known malicious sites. If a user attempts to visit a malicious site on the list, they will see a warning with more information. By checking sites in real-time, Google expects to block 25% more phishing attempts.

The server-side list includes unsafe sites as soon as they are discovered, allowing it to capture sites that switch quickly. It can also grow as large as needed as the Safe Browsing server is not constrained in the same way that user devices are.

“The new capability — also rolling out to Android later this month — uses encryption and other privacy-enhancing techniques to ensure that no one, including Google, knows what website you’re visiting,” Johnathan Li and Kasika Bawa from Google explained in a blog post. “While this does require some additional horsepower from the browser, we’ve worked to make sure your experience remains smooth and speedy.”

Also announced today was an upgrade to Chrome’s Password Checkup feature in iOS. In addition to flagging compromised passwords, the feature will also now flag weak and reused passwords. Chrome will display an alert whenever it detects an issue with a password a user has entered.

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