14 DAY TRIAL // Now that Microsoft Edge is finally a mature browser, Microsoft can focus on delivering big updates to users out there, and one of the company’s key priorities is keeping our data safe.
Microsoft Edge comes with a built-in Password Monitor whose purpose is to help protect our passwords and make sure no credentials have been compromised.
“Passwords are the metaphorical keys that protect your data on the web, help manage your online accounts, and offer personalized and delightful experiences. For these very reasons, they are attractive to criminals. Many websites require you to create an account with a password, and many people reuse the same passwords on many sites to make it easier to remember them. These sites can inadvertently divulge the passwords through phishing scams or large-scale data breaches. The passwords may then get traded on the dark web and used by criminals to take over accounts,” Microsoft explains.
As I said several times, it’s essential for everybody to use a password manager to avoid sticking with the same phrase on all websites, and yet, way too many people out there are still using 12456 as the default password no matter how easy it is to crack with the simplest hacking methods out there.
Microsoft Edge not only helps manage your password and activate more complex phrases for the services that you connect to using the browser, but it also looks for information online to help determine if your credentials have been exposed in a breach.
“To help protect yourself from such attacks, it’s critical to identify if any of your passwords are compromised and then quickly update them. Password Monitor in Microsoft Edge helps you do exactly this; it securely checks all your stored passwords against a repository of known-compromised passwords and alerts you if a match is found, so you can change them,” Microsoft explains.
“We humans are not great at following good password practices, as multiple studies have shown. Choosing easily cracked passwords or reusing passwords across websites are two common mistakes many of us make. Password Monitor helps protect our accounts even when we make mistakes.”
One extra feature that comes bundled with the password monitor is the capability of scanning for leaked passwords, something that is truly useful if you’re afraid your credentials have been exposed following a breach.
And using it is pretty simple, as the tool has been placed in the settings screen at the following path:
Microsoft Edge > Settings > Profiles > Passwords > Fix leaked passwords
Currently available in the testing builds of the browser, you should see the scan now button in the lower part of the screen, so press it to instantly perform a check and see if your saved passwords have been exposed.
What you need to know is that this scan only works for passwords that are saved in Microsoft Edge, so unless you logged in to a page and you store your credentials in the browser, you’re not able to perform this check.
Other than that, you can use this scanner as many times as you want, as everything has been developed to help you make sure all the data is secure. If a password is believed to have been exposed, you are strongly recommended to change it as soon as possible and then update your information in Microsoft Edge too, just to make sure you’re secure all the time. Performing scans regularly is one way to make sure your data is always protected.