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whether Google can identify passwords that are too widely shared 0 Recommended Answers 4 Replies 0 Upvotes
An institution has its email hosted by Google (I don't know the domain but I gather managed by Gmail's people). The institution's security is compromised not by Google but by the institution's people almost all failing to change their passwords from the shared default.
A solution would likely require Google (paid for by the institution) to check its servers for password hashes that are identical more often than some threshold for the same institutional customer. I'm writing here in the hope that Google can do that check. I'm not asking Google to do so (I don't represent that institution) but hoping that Google has the capability. I already got in touch with the institution and made suggestions for its security, including that it ask Google for hash counts and ask Google to help the institution force within-institution password changes and also force uniqueness or near-uniqueness through periodic reviews of hashes of all of the institution's users of institutional Gmail to see if too many are identical.
I have a Google login but not Gmail so I may not have access to relevant help pages, especially those for institutional support.
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Please use the in-product “Send feedback” link to submit your request/issue directly to Google. You will not receive a response from Google. Rather than Gmail, you should probably do that from one of the account settings pages.
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I don't have Gmail (as I said), so I don't have access to anything in the product.
I'm not part of the institution in question and don't represent it, but the security lapse for institutions in this situation is startlingly vast, so Google would probably like to offer the service I described. This forum is where someone, such as you, can note a difficulty with the proposed solution before escalation.
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I don't have Gmail (as I said), so I don't have access to anything in the product.
Google does not read these forums, and there is no way to submit feedback to Google from them.
I already got in touch with the institution and made suggestions...
Perhaps suggest that THEY send feedback about the proposed feature. But I think simple education of company users about good account security is a better choice than some new tool that compares encrypted passwords.
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I already advised the institution to have everyone change default passwords, and I wasn't the first, but, as of a public news report, almost no one had (as noted above) and already their system was being abused because of that. Whether any high risk has become kinetic, I don't know, but I don't think waiting for a disaster (even current non-Google news aside) is a good plan.
I also already suggested that the institution contract with Google to help the institution force changes to widely-used passwords (as noted above), which is where my idea to count hashes comes in. Does counting them create a problem? I think not, but I wanted to be sure I'm not missing something, so I asked. For example, perhaps Google already offers the service.
Google does read some forum posts, at least in another community forum. I've already experienced that, beneficially.
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