Early Saturday morning listeners may have missed my weekend interview segment with Senator Colin Deacon. If you did, it was totally my fault. A typo in my posting instructions meant we didn’t get it online til late Saturday morning. But if you didn’t get a chance to listen, it’s still there, and it’s really worthwhile.
Early Saturday morning listeners may have missed my weekend interview segment with Senator Colin Deacon. If you did, it was totally my fault. A typo in my posting instructions meant we didn’t get it online til late Saturday morning. But if you didn’t get a chance to listen, it’s still there, and it’s really worthwhile.
Google Enhances Browser Security with AI and announces a New Paid ‘Premium’ Version, Google users report account lock outs that beat their two-factor authentication. Google Blocks California News Access Amid Fight Over a Journalism Payment Bill and Gen Z Ditching Google for TikTok and YouTube Searches**
All this and more on the “too much Google” edition of Hashtag Trending. I’m your host, Jim Love. Let’s get into it.
Before we start, I have to say, I didn’t set out to write an all Google edition, maybe it’s because of Google’s major event last week, but when I evaluated the tech stories over the weekend, these hit the top of the pile.
Google is rolling out major new security enhancements for its hugely popular Chrome web browser used by billions worldwide.
At its Cloud Next conference last week, the tech giant revealed it has developed custom artificial intelligence language models specifically trained to detect and block spam, phishing and other malicious content targeting Gmail users.
Deployed late last year, Google says these AI defenses are already yielding big results – catching 20% more spam in Gmail, reviewing 1,000% more reported spam each day, and responding 90% faster to new phishing threats in Google Drive.
The company says the AI models are uniquely adept at identifying semantically similar malicious content at a massive scale across over 3 billion Google Workspace users.
While highly effective so far, Google admits it is “very focused” on innovating further to tackle the remaining 0.1% of spam and malware that slips through its advanced filters.
In a separate move, Google is introducing a new premium version of its Chrome web browser specifically geared towards enterprise user
Called Chrome Enterprise Premium, the paid tier adds enhanced data loss prevention controls as well as deep malware scanning missing from the existing free Chrome browser.
While the core free version will continue receiving general malware and anti-phishing protections, the premium edition aims to provide businesses with an extra level of security and administrative features.
This new AI-powered data protection will cost $10 per user per month on top of existing Workspace subscriptions.
The launch comes as Google also explores giving all Chrome users more control over limiting website permissions like access to keyboard, mouse and other device inputs.
Sources include: Android Police and Forbes
The need was never greater – another story in Forbes this week reported that a number of users were reporting that their two factor authentication had been by-passed giving away access to the their Google accounts.
How do they do this? Apparently they don’t hack the two factor authentication process itself, but the employ something called “session cookie hijacking”
The technique typically starts with a phishing email delivering malware designed to capture the authentication cookies that allow users to seamlessly resume active sessions on sites like Gmail.
