Is it safe to store your passwords on Chrome or other internet browsers?
Nowadays, people have a lot of online accounts, which makes it difficult to remember all the passwords. Chrome offers you the possibility to save your connection information on Google’s servers to facilitate password management. However, Chrome is not the only one. Other browsers like Mozilla Firefox also allow you to store usernames and passwords for immediate access to websites. But have you ever wondered if saving your passwords on Chrome, Google or any other browser is safe or unsafe? Let’s talk about it.
Is it safe to store passwords on Chrome or other browsers?
Well, Google says Chrome encrypts your username and password with a “secret key” known only to your device. And this happens before the data is stored on Google’s servers, which means that no one, including Google, can access your username or password.
If you visit the password manager section of your Google account, you will learn that even you cannot access your username or passwords. Yes you read it, right. The search giant will first ask you to enter your Gmail account password, after which you can verify the details.
While Google never sends an alert when you or, say, someone else tries to access your passwords, the good thing is that you don’t have access to all passwords. at a time. So, for example, if you want to verify your Facebook username and password, you will need to click on it and enter your Gmail password. You can then check the login credentials.
This is good practice, but you do not receive special alerts for it. Browsers like Firefox don’t even follow this practice, and there’s no way to add a security PIN to protect the username and passwords you store on its servers. While Firefox says your data is “secure,” that doesn’t appear to be the case as you can simply open or hack your laptop, access login credentials from Settings> Privacy & Security> User IDs & Passwords.
Either way, it’s still not safe to store the login information on any browser including Chrome because you don’t always get full protection and there are always risks involved. For example, if your laptop is hacked, your data can be compromised. If your Gmail account is hacked, the person will be able to easily connect to any account or site that you have stored on Google’s servers. You might have noticed that once you’ve signed into Gmail on your new device, you don’t need to sign back into Play Store or Chrome or Google Photos or Drive. You can easily access everything just by logging into Gmail.
What can you do?
If your Facebook, Outlook, bank, and other passwords are saved on Google, you should remove them immediately. Although many banking sites have a two-step verification system and follow certain security protocols, so it can be difficult for the hacker to crack. But, it is advised not to log in with the credentials of an account.
Sites or accounts that are not as important may remain in the password manager list.
There’s a reason people are urged to enable Two-Factor Authentication (2FA) because it requires you not only to enter your primary password, but also a secondary password, PIN, or OTP, which no one else does. does not know. This doesn’t mean that 2FA is completely hack-proof, as researchers at Stony Brook University and cybersecurity firm Palo Alto Networks have discovered that certain “phishing toolkits” like man-in attacks -the-Middle (MITM) can achieve this. While there isn’t much people can do about it, there is one thing they can do: follow the basic rules to prevent hackers from gaining access to your data. It is mandatory to activate 2FA for each online account you have, and passwords must be changed every month.
Try to keep unique passwords, add secondary passwords or PIN codes. It is very important to use 2FA for your Google account and add recovery email to the same account. So, if your account gets hacked, you can recover it immediately using your secondary Gmail account.
How to remove passwords from Chrome?
Just type “Google Password Manager” on your browser, and it will display the official Google site at the top. Click on it and select a site or account that you don’t want Chrome to keep on its servers. The search giant will then ask you to enter your Gmail password, after which you can delete it.