In May of this year, Google announced plans to enable two-factor authentication by default to make many accounts more secure. This month is Cyber Security Awareness Month. Google reminds us of this plan again, saying in a blog post that by the end of this year, it will enable two-factor for another 150 million accounts. In 2018, Google stated that only 10% of its active accounts were using two-factor authentication.
Since then, it has been pushing, urging and encouraging people to enable this setting. Another aspect of this effort will require more than 2 million YouTube creators to turn on two-factor authentication to protect their channels from malicious attackers. Google said that it also cooperates with some organizations to send out more than 10,000 hardware security keys every year, and the two-factor push makes the technology available on mobile phones at any time, whether you use Android or iPhone.
Another tool to help users keep their accounts safe is to use a password manager. Google now says that it checks more than 1 billion passwords every day through its built-in Chrome, Android and Google app managers. The password manager is also available on iOS, and the Chrome browser can automatically fill in the login information of other applications.
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Google said that soon it will help users generate passwords for other applications to make things easier. Also coming soon is the ability to see all saved passwords directly from the Google application menu. Last but not least, Google is recommending its inactive account manager, which is mainly used in scenarios where users decide to stop using their account and they have the right to decide what happens to the account.
Google added this feature in 2013 so that you can set a timeout period for your account, and the inactive account management agreement will take effect between three months to 18 months of non-use. In order to prevent just changing accounts or forgetting to log in, Google will send an email one month before the end of the restriction period. At that time, the user can choose to delete the account information directly or forward it to any trusted contact that you want someone to handle on its behalf.
Google’s blog post pointed out that an inactive account led to a large-scale Colonial Pipeline attack earlier this year. For security reasons, you may not want your digital life to just sit there for hackers to use when they are bored in the future.