MAY 2021 • TECH ADVISOR 103or lured into divulging your
password under false pretences.
Now, if you go to passwords.
google.comandauthenticate
yourself,Google’sonline
Password Checkup will give
you a quick dashboard of which
passwordshavebeenexposed
in securitybreaches, which
have been duplicated across
various sites, and which could
be improved with more complex
passwords to avoid being easily
cracked if a breach were to
occur. There are also links to
change the passwords on the
sites themselves. However, this
works only if you’ve stored passwords
using Google itself.
Firefox Lockwise
Firefox Lockwise, part of the freeMozilla
Firefox browser, works in a slightly
different manner. It doesn’t offerthe
recommendations that Google does
about redundant and weak passwords,
but its password monitoring feature
otherwise works similarly. It also seems
to work regardless of whether you’ve
stored a password within Firefox,or
simply imported passwords fromanother
browser. Like Google, though, itneeds
to ‘know’ your password, which requires
you to store it in the browser.
TheeasiestwaytogettoLockwise
is bytypingabout:loginsintothe
FirefoxURLbar.If a passwordhasbeen
exposed,you’llseea bright-redbanner,
theaccountandpasswordin question,
anda linktojumptotheaccountin
question.(It may also flag accounts
thatyoumayhavealreadydisabled,as
itdid with a LinkedIn breach it showed
for me, which had been tied to a
previous work account.)Microsoft Edge
Password Monitor
Last year Microsoft promised an
upcoming Password Monitor within
Microsoft Edge, and it will soon roll outFirefox Lockwise builds in password monitoring inside
the Firefox browser.