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Google is offering free Titan Security Keys to US political campaigns

Google announced on Safer Internet Day that it’s giving out Titan Security Keys to political campaigns during the 2020 US elections. This is through a partnership with Defending Digital Campaigns to encourage two-factor authentication (2FA) and other security measures.

The Federal Election Commission regulates “defensive security technology,” and as a result, “most companies couldn’t donate tech even if they wanted to.” Last year, Defending Digital Campaigns was granted special approval to “offer cybersecurity services to presidential and congressional campaigns.”

This partnership sees Google provide free Titan Security Keys to all qualified presidential and congressional campaigns. In addition to username and password, campaign staff signing into Google Accounts and other services will have to plug in the registered security key to verify that it’s really them.

We’re working with this bipartisan organization to help make all qualifying campaigns safer and make it easier for people to enroll in our Advanced Protection program.

Google is also encouraging sign-ups of the Advanced Protection Program, and will offer a free backup security key as part of the DDC partnership. APP limits third-party app and service access to your emails and Drive files, while there are extra verification steps if you ever lose account access. For enterprise accounts, additional scans look at Gmail attachments and “risky” downloads in Chrome.

More about security keys:

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Avatar for Abner Li Abner Li

Editor-in-chief. Interested in the minutiae of Google and Alphabet. Tips/talk: abner@9to5g.com

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