Today’s cyber criminals don’t discriminate when it comes to who they target online. Everyone from politicians and celebrities to everyday citizens run the risk of having their personal information stolen.

That’s why Google has made security the cornerstone of our product strategy. We don’t just plug security holes; we work to eliminate entire classes of threats for people who depend on our services. Today alone, billions of people around the world will use our products to help with things big and small – whether it’s paying for coffee with Google Pay or teaching an online class full of students – and it’s our responsibility to keep your personal information safe and secure. We know that your Gmail is often the link to accessing your non-Google accounts, for banking, social media, shopping and more. That’s why the security of Gmail is fundamental to our work to keep you safe online.

By making all of our products secure by default, we keep more users safe than anyone else in the world — blocking malware, phishing attempts, spam messages, and cyber attacks.

Last year, we accelerated our journey to eliminating password threats by starting to auto-enroll users in 2-Step Verification (2SV), giving people an extra layer of protection when cyber criminals try to hack into their accounts, by requiring a second form of verification beyond the password. Since last year’s initiative, we’ve successfully auto-enabled 2SV for over 150 million people, and we’ve also required it for over 2 million of our YouTube creators. As a result of this effort, we have seen a 50% decrease in accounts being compromised among those users.

This decrease speaks volumes to how effective having a second form of verification can be in protecting your data and personal information. And while we’re proud of these initial results, and happy with the response we have received from our users and the community, we’re excited about other ongoing work we’re doing behind the scenes to make our users even safer.

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