Google has announced plans to automatically enroll 150 million user accounts in its 2-step verification (2SV) system by the end of the year.
The target accounts are accounts that have not done so themselves, even though they can enable Google’s 2-step verification (2SV) login feature.
Google says on its blog, “We are now automatically registering Google accounts with the appropriate backup mechanisms for a seamless transition to 2SV.
For many people, passwords are the first line of defense to protect their digital life. However, managing strong passwords is not always convenient. As a result, many people expose themselves to online risks by looking for shortcuts (e.g., dog’s name and birthday) or ignoring password best practices altogether.
At Google, we protect our customers by providing a secure product by default.
In conjunction with this Cybersecurity Awareness Month, we’d like to share with you some of Google’s efforts to make your login more secure.
Every day, we check the security of a billion passwords to protect your account from hacking. Built directly into Chrome, Android, and Google Apps, Google’s Password Manager uses the latest security technology to keep your passwords secure across all the sites and apps you use. It also makes it easy to create and use strong, unique passwords across all your devices, so you don’t have to remember or repeat each password.
On iOS, if you choose Chrome, you can now auto-fill saved passwords in other apps as well. This means that sign-in, which used to involve remembering and entering passwords on individual sites, is now literally one tap away.
We also plan to make Chrome’s strong password generation feature available in any iOS app, similar to Autofill with Google which currently works on Android.
We are also introducing the ability to access all of your passwords stored in Google Password Manager from the Google Apps menu. These enhancements are designed to make your password experience easier and more secure, not only on Google, but across the web.
2-step verification (2SV)
In addition to passwords, having a second means of authentication has been shown to dramatically reduce the chance of an attacker gaining access to your account. 2-Stage Authentication (2SV) is one of the most reliable ways to prevent unauthorized access to your account and network. 2SV is most effective when it combines both “what you know” (e.g., passwords) and “what you have” (e.g., cell phones and security keys), and we have been a leader in this area for many years.
2SV has always been at the core of Google’s security measures, and now we are using Google Prompts to make it seamless for our customers.
With this prompt, all you have to do is tap your mobile device to prove that it is really you who is trying to log in.
We also believe that the best way to keep our customers safe is to turn on Google’s security protections by default, so we’ve started to automatically set our customers’ accounts to a more secure state.
By the end of 2021, we plan to automatically enroll an additional 150 million Google users in 2SV and require 2 million YouTube creators to turn on 2SV.
This includes users with the latest smartphones with recent versions of the Android system.
When Google enables the 2SV feature, users will be prompted to confirm the prompt that appears on their smartphone every time they sign in to their Google account on a new device, app, or browser.
As part of this long term plan, more and more users will be enabling 2SV on their accounts in the coming year as part of a carefully executed staggered deployment plan to avoid a major break.
Force YouTube creators to enable 2SV as well
In addition, Google is also taking steps to ensure the safety of YouTube creator accounts, which have been at the center of many hacks in recent years.
Google has announced that starting November 1, 2021, all YouTube creator accounts with monetization enabled will no longer have access to the YouTube Studio section of the site unless they enable the 2SV solution.
In recent years, there has been a lot of underground hacking of hacked YouTube accounts, with accounts selling for between $5 and $1,000.
Mandatory 2-Step Verification for Creators in the YouTube Partner Program
Hello YPP Creators!
Beginning November 1, 2021, YouTube will mandate 2-step verification (2SV) for all monetized YouTube channels. 2-step verification (2SV) will be enabled for all monetized YouTube channels. YouTube will require all monetized YouTube channels to enable 2-step verification (2SV).
If you do not enable 2-step verification by November 1, you will not be able to access YouTube Studio or YouTube Studio Content Manager until you secure your account with 2SV. Therefore, it is important that you set this up so that you can continue to access YouTube Studio and manage your content.
We recommend that you immediately turn on 2SV from your Google Account page. Also, please note that regardless of your level of access to a channel, you will need to enable 2SV by November 1 in order to continue to have access to that channel.
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