Two things are true of data online: It will be collected and, just as easily, it will be lost.
But a major update to Malwarebytes Browser Guard will better protect users from opaque data collection that happens every day online, as well as raising their awareness about corporate data breaches that have left their sensitive information vulnerable to harm.
First, Browser Guard will now send helpful notifications to users when they visit a website belonging to a company that has suffered a proven data breach in the past 90 days. While everyday users might already know about some of the largest breaches in recent history—AT&T comes to mind—it can be nearly impossible to keep track of every single company that has lost user data in the past.
With these new data breach notifications, Browser Guard will warn users about recent data breaches they perhaps never heard about, from the 2.2 million people affected by the breach of Rite Aid, to the 1.7 million people affected by the breach of Slim CD, to the 500,000 people affected by the breach of the Texas Dow Employees Credit Union.
Importantly, Browser Guard will not send repeat notifications that pester return users. The notifications will also include direct access to the Malwarebytes Digital Footprint Portal, allowing users to check in real time whether their data was included in any flagged breach.
In a second, added feature, Browser Guard is also making it easier to stay private online by automatically opting users out of data collection performed by tracking cookies that are littered across the internet, with no extra effort required on users’ behalf.
These types of cookies are present on nearly every single website that people visit today, from Google to Facebook to YouTube to Reddit. They are invisible pieces of code that advertisers use to track user activity even after they leave a website.
This data, when collected in aggregate, can reveal a person’s age, gender, hometown, relationship status, political beliefs, and so much more. And it’s precisely this data that advertisers want, as it helps them micro-target their ads to, say, new dads in Overland Park, Kansas, looking for a lawnmower, or, first-time homeowners in San Francisco needing a washer and dryer that fit in a small space.
For more than a decade, this type of data collection happened invisibly, but when the European Union passed a sweeping set of data protection rights in 2016, much of that changed.
Following the passage of the law (referred to in short as GDPR), users began to see cumbersome popups everywhere across the web that asked about “cookie preferences”—preferences around how these invisible trackers would collect information both for the website itself and for the advertisers using that website to deliver ads.
With the latest Browser Guard update, cookie consent forms will now be auto-rejected, thus requesting the site to honor the most privacy-preserving settings.
What people experience is a simpler and less aggravating internet, where they’re no longer forced to manage yet another aspect of their privacy.
For a live look at the new Browser Guard, see the video below.