{"id":331522,"date":"2025-12-08T02:48:20","date_gmt":"2025-12-08T02:48:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/331522\/"},"modified":"2025-12-08T02:48:20","modified_gmt":"2025-12-08T02:48:20","slug":"google-confirms-account-takeovers-change-this-chrome-setting-now","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/331522\/","title":{"rendered":"Google Confirms \u2018Account Takeovers\u2019\u2014Change This Chrome Setting Now"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\" top-image\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/1765162100_38_0x0.jpg\" alt=\"Chrome app.\" data-height=\"2848\" data-width=\"4288\" fetchpriority=\"high\" style=\"position:absolute;top:0\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Check your Chrome settings now.<\/p>\n<p>Jaap Arriens\/NurPhoto<\/p>\n<p>Google <a class=\"color-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.forbes.com\/sites\/zakdoffman\/2025\/08\/18\/google-warns-gmail-users-hackers-gain-access-to-accounts\/\" data-ga-track=\"InternalLink:https:\/\/www.forbes.com\/sites\/zakdoffman\/2025\/08\/18\/google-warns-gmail-users-hackers-gain-access-to-accounts\/\" target=\"_self\" aria-label=\"warns\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">warns<\/a> that \u201c<a class=\"color-link\" href=\"https:\/\/workspace.google.com\/blog\/identity-and-security\/defending-against-account-takeovers-top-threats-passkeys-and-dbsc\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\" data-ga-track=\"ExternalLink:https:\/\/workspace.google.com\/blog\/identity-and-security\/defending-against-account-takeovers-top-threats-passkeys-and-dbsc\" aria-label=\"defending against account takeovers\u201d\">defending against account takeovers\u201d<\/a> is getting harder, as hackers intensify their efforts to steal passwords, multi-factor authentication tokens and cookies. While losing your Google account is a nightmare, it could be much worse than that. It could let those hackers gain access to all your non-Google accounts as well.<\/p>\n<p>If you sync Google Chrome across your devices, you will likely be alarmed to know just how much data Chrome harvests and stores under your account on Google\u2019s cloud. That means private and sensitive data that has nothing to do with Google. All there for the taking, if hackers successfully steal your credentials.<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"embed-base color-body color-body-border link-embed embed-3\" href=\"https:\/\/www.forbes.com\/sites\/zakdoffman\/2025\/12\/07\/fbi-warns-iphone-and-android-users-stop-making-these-calls\/\" target=\"_blank\" aria-label=\"FBI Warns iPhone And Android Users\u2014Stop Making These Calls\" data-ga-track=\"forbesEmbedly:https:\/\/www.forbes.com\/sites\/zakdoffman\/2025\/12\/07\/fbi-warns-iphone-and-android-users-stop-making-these-calls\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">ForbesFBI Warns iPhone And Android Users\u2014Stop Making These CallsBy Zak Doffman<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u201cGet your bookmarks, passwords and more on all your devices,\u201d Google says. \u201cWhen you sign in to Chrome, you can save info in your Google Account. You can then use your info on all your devices where you&#8217;re signed in with the same account.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>That includes &#8220;bookmarks, history and open tabs, passwords, payment info, addresses, phone numbers, payment info that you saved to Google Pay, passwords that you saved to your Google Account and addresses that you saved to your Google Account.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>You can <a class=\"color-link\" href=\"https:\/\/support.google.com\/chrome\/answer\/185277?sjid=13511455841271063140-EU\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\" data-ga-track=\"ExternalLink:https:\/\/support.google.com\/chrome\/answer\/185277?sjid=13511455841271063140-EU\" aria-label=\"enable or disable Chrome Sync\">enable or disable Chrome Sync<\/a> from the browser\u2019s settings. You can choose to \u201csync everything\u201d or \u201ccustomize\u201d your own list. That means you could disable passwords or payment info from being sync\u2019d across all your devices. Inconvenient, yes, but safer, because that sync works through Google\u2019s cloud, secured by your account sign-in.<\/p>\n<p>There is a separate issue. <a class=\"color-link\" href=\"https:\/\/support.google.com\/accounts\/answer\/6208650?hl=en&amp;co=GENIE.Platform%3DAndroid\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\" data-ga-track=\"ExternalLink:https:\/\/support.google.com\/accounts\/answer\/6208650?hl=en&amp;co=GENIE.Platform%3DAndroid\" aria-label=\"Google\u2019s password manager is really just Chrome\u2019s password manager\">Google\u2019s password manager is really just Chrome\u2019s password manager<\/a>, and security experts caution against saving passwords in browsers. This is because a single password opens your accounts and accesses your passwords, and your passwords are at risk from browser attacks, which are not uncommon.<\/p>\n<p>You\u2019re safer and more secure with a standalone password manager.<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"embed-base color-body color-body-border link-embed embed-2\" href=\"https:\/\/www.forbes.com\/sites\/zakdoffman\/2025\/12\/07\/is-your-boss-using-new-microsoft-and-google-updates-to-spy-on-you\/\" target=\"_blank\" aria-label=\"Is Your Boss Using New Microsoft And Google Updates To Spy On You?\" data-ga-track=\"forbesEmbedly:https:\/\/www.forbes.com\/sites\/zakdoffman\/2025\/12\/07\/is-your-boss-using-new-microsoft-and-google-updates-to-spy-on-you\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">ForbesIs Your Boss Using New Microsoft And Google Updates To Spy On You?By Zak Doffman<\/a><\/p>\n<p>You must also make sure you have added a passkey to your Google account, and a form of multi-factor authentication that\u2019s not SMS. America\u2019s cyber defense agency hasd just <a class=\"color-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.cisa.gov\/sites\/default\/files\/2025-11\/guidance-mobile-communications-best-practices-20251124_508c.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\" data-ga-track=\"ExternalLink:https:\/\/www.cisa.gov\/sites\/default\/files\/2025-11\/guidance-mobile-communications-best-practices-20251124_508c.pdf\" aria-label=\"warned\">warned<\/a> Google account holders to \u201cdisable other, less secure forms of MFA\u201d and to &#8220;review existing passwords to ensure they are long, unique, and random.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Check and update your Chrome Sync settings now. You can also reset your Sync to delete past data and ensure nothing dangerous is lurking in your cloud account.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Check your Chrome settings now. Jaap Arriens\/NurPhoto Google warns that \u201cdefending against account takeovers\u201d is getting harder, as&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":331523,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[49,48,25405,17435,17433,48944,17438,7244,20978,61],"class_list":["post-331522","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-technology","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-chrome-attack","tag-chrome-security","tag-chrome-update","tag-chrome-upgrade","tag-chrome-warning","tag-gmail-attack","tag-gmail-warning","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/331522","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=331522"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/331522\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/331523"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=331522"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=331522"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=331522"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}