Google admits it accidentally hacked its own password manager
Google has apologized after its password manager for millions of Windows users malfunctioned. The outage left many users unable to access their saved passwords for nearly 18 hours.
The issue affected Windows users running the M127 version of the Chrome browser and was resolved after 17 hours and 51 minutes.
According to GoogleThe root cause was a change in product behavior without proper feature guard. Ultimately, a faulty update broke the functionality of the password manager, leaving users unable to access stored credentials.
Faulty update caused Google password manager to crash
The company summarized the issue as follows: “Affected users were unable to find passwords in Chrome’s password manager. Users could save passwords, but they were not visible to them.”
According to various estimates, 15-17 million people were affected by the nearly day-long power outage.
Furthermore, the incident was extra painful as many administrators were already dealing with the aftermath of a problematic CrowdStrike update that also affected Microsoft devices.
The global nature of the outage underscored the risks associated with relying on browser-based password managers. While password managers are critical to online security, they are not immune to such disruptions, and the outage only serves as a reminder that backup systems must be in place.
In the incident report, Google apologized for the outage and noted that affected users should restart their browsers to restore functionality after the fix was confirmed on July 25 at 9:27 a.m. US/Pacific.
The company also issued guidance on a possible temporary fix during the outage, which many smaller businesses may not have been able to do quickly. For some users, however, the bug has left a bitter taste in their mouths.