Google apologises after passwords disappear for 15m Windows users
Technology
The disappearing password problem impacted Chrome web browser users all over the world
(Web Desk) - The digital world is recovering from the damages caused by the Microsoft outage, which brought multiple businesses around the world to its knees, and now there is another bug that led to a new crisis.
Google recently introduced a new bug to Google Chrome which led to the vanishing of passwords of some 15 million Windows users worldwide. The passwords disappeared for 18 hours on July 24 and July 25.
Google said it was due to “a change in product behaviour without proper feature guard,” a rhetoric similar to the CrowdStrike disruption.
The disappearing password problem impacted Chrome web browser users all over the world, leaving them unable to find any passwords already saved using the Chrome password manager. Newly saved passwords were also rendered invisible to the affected users.
Google, which has now fixed the issue, said that the problem was limited to the M127 version of Chrome Browser on the Windows platform.
The precise number of users to be hit by the Google Password Manager vanishing act is not known. As there are more than 3 billion Chrome web browser users, with Windows users counting for the vast majority of these, it’s possible to come up with an estimated number.
Google later fixed the issue and apologised to users,” We apologize for the inconvenience this service disruption/outage may have caused.”
After the issue was fixed, the users simply had to restart their browser when facing the same glitch again.
This issue raises concerns about over-dependency on online Password Managers. Although a browser-based solution serves the ease of use element, having all your passwords saved in one Password Manager is never a good idea.
Millions of Google users rely on this feature for saving their passwords for websites related to various purposes, including work, healthcare, childcare, education, government etc.
This may not be a good idea, a single technical glitch, like in this case, can bring your system to a standstill.
Hence, it is unsafe to trust any single passwords-saving website, especially it if involves important documents. It’s better to have a backup.
