Once again, Google has outdone themselves with the creation of a new way to protect it’s users called “Advanced Protection”. The feature will take away some of the convenience the average users have when logging into Google services but will vastly increase their security like never before.
“Advanced Protection” will require the use of actual physical keys, which support the FIDO Universal 2nd Factor, or U2F. Google has conveniently provided those signing up for “Advanced Protection” with links to securely purchase these keys. One is a U2F supported USB stick that will be used when logging into a laptop or other type of computer. The other is a bluetooth enabled U2F key meant for logging into mobile devices such as smartphones, tablets or similar.
This latest protection was developed in order to better provide security to everyone but the main focus was to help users who are typically overlooked with their need for increased security. Google stated that government employees, political officials and even victims of violent crimes are commonly forgotten about and need better options to keep their accounts secure from hackers.
With the new protection feature, users will see that even if someone has their actual password, it will be impossible to access their accounts without having the necessary U2F key in hand. Google wants to also inform users that losing the keys will initiate a recovery process, which will be slightly lengthy for security purposes.
If you think you could benefit from “Advanced Protection”, the process for signing up to it is very simple as soon as you purchase the required FIDO U2F keys. Users will be walked through the process, step by step, and quickly on their way to enabling the highest level of account security available. Google also offers “Chrome Cleanup” to Chrome users that will better protect against malware and other similar infections.
