Microsoft Edge appears with feature that warns about leaking passwords

Microsoft has released version 88 of its Edge browser. This release includes a password generator and Password Monitor, a feature that warns users if they store a password that has become insecure due to a data breach.

Password Monitor is part of Edge 88, but Microsoft reports that it may take several weeks for users to actually see this feature appear in the browser. When a user enters a password to be saved, the feature contacts a server to check if it was leaked in a data breach. Password Monitor then does this every so often as a precaution.

Microsoft notes that it is important that the edge server does not contain information about users’ usernames and passwords and that third parties should not access the communication between user and edge server. Microsoft uses homomorphic encryption for this. This allows the company to perform analytics on encrypted data without having to decrypt the data to get results.

According to Microsoft, this is its first consumer homomorphic encryption application and is working on further applications. The company claims that the procedure is optimized to work on both lower-powered and high-end systems, and it works on all operating systems that Edge runs on.

Edge 88 also includes a password generator, and Microsoft has tweaked the display of permissions granted to sites. For example, users should have a better overview of which sites have permission to share locations and can access the camera and microphone. Finally, Edge 88 has made it easier to enable tracking prevention in private mode and added support for Secure DNS.