Google’s plans to prevent phishing attacks involve selling its Titan Security Key to corporate customers.
The search giant said Wednesday that it will sell a security key based on the internal security keys Google uses for its own staff. As cyber security reporter Brian Krebs wrote earlier in July, Google’s use of security keys have helped protect more than 85,000 Google employees from being scammed by phishing attacks.
The new keys will be available in either USB or Bluetooth to connect to a person’s computer. The idea is that people won’t be able to access certain services that have been registered by the security key.
In the case of a phishing attempt, in which a miscreant sends a bogus email that contains a link to a malicious website and lures a person to provide sensitive information, hackers would be unable to access user email accounts or other sensitive accounts because they would need the physical key to do so.
Although companies like RSA offer smartphone apps that show people randomized, temporary numerical codes that they must enter before accessing sensitive accounts, security keys like Titan or those sold by security company Yubico require people to press a button that’s affixed to the device.
“We’ve long advocated the use of security keys as the strongest, most phishing-resistant authentication factor for high-value users, especially cloud admins, to protect against the potentially damaging consequences of credential theft,” Google said in a blog post.
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Google said that the keys, announced during the company’s Cloud Next event on Wednesday in San Francisco, are now available to its Google Cloud customers. It will be available to the general public to purchase via the Google Store at an unspecified date.
