Google today four new features to make your personal accounts more secure.
The four updates are not only aimed at strengthening protection before and after users sign up for the company's services, but also in the event of recovery after a hack.
According to Google's Jonathan Skelker, the first protective feature Google released today runs in the background before users even start typing their username and password.
According to Skelker, Google will soon prevent users from logging into their accounts if they have JavaScript disabled in their browser.
The reason Google is implementing this measure is because it uses JavaScript for risk assessment checks on the login page. So if JavaScript is disabled, it will allow hackers to bypass these checks.
This change is likely to affect a very small number of users (around 0.01 percent according to Google's data) but will likely make life harder for bots. The users who will be affected are those who disable JavaScript for performance reasons.
The second new security feature is related to malicious Android apps that you may have installed on your phones.
Google plans to take data from Google Play Protect, a security scanner included as an official Android app on Google Play, to record all malicious apps still installed on smartphones running Android.
This information will appear within the Security Checkup section of your Google account in the coming weeks, and in fact this information will overlay the user's screen as soon as they log in to their account, to force them to do something as quickly as possible.
The third new feature concerns third-party apps and websites that a user has granted permission to access their account data in the past.
“We already notify you when you are about to give access to sensitive information – like your Gmail data or Google Contacts – to third-party websites or apps. In the coming weeks, we will expand this to notify you whenever you are about to share any data from your account,” Skelker said in a blog on the company.
Last but not least, there's a security feature that Google plans to use in the event of your account being compromised. This feature is already live and is a new set of processes for restoring access and re-securing compromised security features.
The process is detailed on this Google support page and apart from helping users regain access to their accounts, it will also help them check any financial activity from Google Pay, review what new files were added to Gmail or Drive, etc.
This GIF shows a preview of how this new process for recovering your account works.
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