Google To Increase Security For VIPs But Not For Regular People

Cybersecurity is serious business these days, especially in the wake of the hacking incidents involving entire countries and giant corporations. This is why Google is planning on implementing some increased security measures to prevent hackers from getting into the accounts of users in the future. Unfortunately, this is only meant to benefit powerful and influential people, leaving regular users in the cold.

Alphabet will reportedly start offering a service called Advanced Protection Program next month, which is designed to provide extra security in aspects like email and web browsing, Bloomberg reports. This system will basically replace two-factor authentication, which involves receiving a code key when signing in, with physical keys.

The new service will be offered exclusively to powerful individuals such as politicians, big-time executives of giant companies, and celebrities. According to Google, the reason for offering this system to such individuals is because they simply require more protection than the average person.

The key will come in the form of a USB drive, which will contain a unique key code assigned to the individual whose account the code will unlock. As such, every time the owner of the key needs to sign in, the key will also need to be plugged in.

Google decided to implement these changes after several prominent individuals had their emails hacked, with the Democratic National Committee’s email dumps being a really good example of the consequences. With these new security measures, it should become a lot harder to replicate these incidents, The Verge reports. Well, that’s the idea, anyway.

There are still a lot of risks involved even with this kind of security system. The users could get careless and forget their keys somewhere, for example, or hackers could find a way to circumvent such security measures. It’s been done before and if a hacker group backed by a powerful government tries, they could still do a lot of damage.