Since enabling two-factor authentication, Google account hacks have dropped 50%
Today is Safer Internet Day and Google has published a blog post outlining some of the steps it is taking to ensure its users and their information is safe from unwanted hackers. To start, Google has partnered with Khan Academy and will fund $5 million to create online safety content for Khan Academy’s 18 million global users. According to Google, searches for “how to stop identity theft” has more than doubled in 2021.
Back in October, Google automatically enrolled more than 150 million users in two-step verification. This makes it so when you sign into a Google account on a new device, an alert will verify the login with another device that’s already logged in such as a computer or smartphone. Since enabling this, Google has seen a 50% decrease in hacked accounts.
Google announces a couple of new security initiatives for its users. The company has teamed up with several organizations for Google’s “Campaign Security Project” which gives high-profile organizations ‘across the political spectrum’ tools to train candidates and campaign workers to stay safe online.
Next month, Google will launch its account-level enhanced browsing feature. This will be an opt-in feature that “provides [Google’s] broadest security protection against threats [encountered] on the web and against your Google Account”.
Google’s Guest Mode for Google Assistant is now rolling out to 9 more languages in the moving months for Smart Displays and speakers that are sold globally. Guest Mode lets people use Assistant devices without saving history to the associated Google account until Guest Mode is turned off.
Google Fi users will soon get the ability to check on family members and share location with them using the Fi app. You can already do this on Google Maps, so we’re not sure what the real difference between using the location sharing features here is.
