You may know that it is possible to save the passwords of your internet browser to avoid having to enter them every time you want to connect to a website? This is a very practical feature that saves time and avoids having to memorize all your passwords.
If this is useful for the user, it is on the other hand a loophole for your cybersecurity. Indeed, recovering a password, whether by someone who has direct access to your computer (passwords can be displayed in clear text) or a hacker who has managed to steal your password, can be problematic. Especially if the stolen password allows access to sensitive online services such as your bank, taxes, or if your bank card is registered there. To limit the risks (I say “limit” because, in absolute terms, you should not save your passwords in the browser), there is a feature in most browsers to protect your passwords.
Protecting Passwords Saved in Mozilla Firefox
Mozilla Firefox has been my favorite internet browser for years. It is a browser concerned with the privacy of its users, open and free, developed by a non-profit organization. Firefox is available on all platforms (Windows, macOS, Android, and all Linux distributions ). It benefits from numerous extensions which allow its functionalities to be extended. It also has a feature that helps protect passwords saved in Firefox. Here is the procedure to follow:
- Open Mozilla Firefox and right click on the “hamburger” menu
- From the menu list, select Options .
- Select Privacy and security in the left menu of Firefox options then in the Usernames and passwords section ,c check the Use a master password box
- Define a strong password to protect the passwords saved in Firefox then click on OK .
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You have now set a master password for Firefox. Once Firefox has started, if you visit a website where you have saved your credentials, Firefox will display a window asking for your master password.
Once you have entered your password, you will be able to access your saved passwords without having to enter them again. If your password is not correct, you will not be able to access your saved credentials in the browser.
Protect your passwords in Google Chrome and Brave
Google Chrome has become in a few years the most used web browser in the world, helped by the dominant position of Google in the field of internet search. Google Chrome also offers the possibility of storing your identifiers in the browser to avoid having to enter them each time and that of securing your browser and saved passwords. Nothing special to do to protect passwords in Google Chrome, you will need to enter your Windows session password to be able to view the saved passwords in the browser. This prevents a malicious person who would have access to your open session from recovering passwords saved in Google Chrome.
Note that there is the same possibility in the Brave browser which also benefits from a security feature offered by Windows 10 which asks for the password of the current Windows user.
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