Google has issued an apology after a malfunction in its password manager left millions of Windows users unable to access their saved passwords for nearly 18 hours. The issue affected users on the M127 version of the Chrome browser and was resolved after 17 hours and 51 minutes.
The problem arose from a change in product behavior without proper feature guard, which led to a faulty update disrupting the password manager’s functionality. As a result, users were unable to see their saved passwords, though they could still save new ones.
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Details of the Incident
Google explained, “Impacted users were unable to find passwords in Chrome’s password manager. Users can save passwords, however it was not visible to them.” It is estimated that 15-17 million individuals were affected by this issue.
This incident compounded existing issues, as many administrators were already dealing with the aftermath of a problematic CrowdStrike update that impacted Microsoft devices. The widespread nature of the malfunction underscored the potential risks of relying on browser-based password managers, highlighting the importance of having backup systems in place.
In its incident report, Google apologized for the inconvenience and advised affected users to restart their browsers to restore functionality. The fix was confirmed on July 25 at 09:27 US/Pacific. Google also provided guidance for a workaround during the outage, though some smaller companies may have struggled to implement it quickly. For many users, the incident has been a frustrating experience.
