Google Confirms Enhanced Attack Protection For 1 Billion Chrome Users

Google gets it in the neck concerning security issues more than most, and for good reason: the attacks just keep coming. From the most sophisticated ever AI-driven threat campaigns targeting Gmail users, to drive-by download threats to Chrome users. But, credit where credit is due, Google is fighting back. From the use of AI to change compromised passwords in Chrome, to the regular discovery and patching of critical browser security vulnerabilities. Now Google has confirmed perhaps the most important piece of security news so far this year, a billion Chrome users getting enhanced protection from attackers.

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Enhanced Protection Mode Enabled For 1 Billion Chrome Users

Google’s safe browsing protections for the 3.5 billion users of the world’s most popular web browsing app, Chrome, have been a staple security diet since 2005. Google says that it helps protect more than 5 billion devices from the attentions of cybercriminals by identifying threats in real time. Threats such as phishing, malware and other hacking campaigns. After 15 years of such protection, Google launched an enhanced protection mode within safe browsing that aims to provide more targeted security against the kind of increasingly sophisticated threats we are seeing today. Most of these enhanced protections, should you choose to enable them, are provided by way of advanced AI models that have been trained to identify the kind of dangerous links that are so often employed in phishing attacks. That compares to the standard protection that uses a list of site addresses and files known to be of potential danger, a list that is updated every 30 minutes or so, leaving enough time for attackers to strike and be gone before you know it. “These models are trained to distinguish between real and malicious websites based on millions of real-world examples,” Benjamin Ackerman, Google’s Chrome product manager, and Jonathan Li who holds the same role but for Safe Browsing, said. Not only that, but Google has confirmed that 1 billion Chrome users have chosen to enable this protection.

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How Does The Google Chrome Enhanced Protection Mode Work?

The Chrome safe browsing enhanced protection mode enables those URLs that have been designed to imitate trusted domains to be identified and blocked. Any suspicious pages that are found are compared to patterns from known attacks and warning notification issued by the browser accordingly. Enhanced Protection also uses AI models to protect against dangerous downloads by scanning more than 300,000 suspicious files every month. This, Google said, identifies new forms of malware that haven’t been seen before, and can even “help protect you from new threats hidden in encrypted archives.” What’s more, enhanced protection can help protect other users well. “Once it detects a page or download as malicious,” Google said, “that information can then protect all future users who visit those sites.”

If you haven’t enabled enhanced protection mode, now is the time to join the 1 billion Chrome users who have. It’s not a free pass to click on any link in an email or download any document, but anything that helps make you more secure has to be applauded. So, what are you waiting for, enable it now.

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