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Massive Spying on Users of Google's Chrome Shows New Security Weakness


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Spying on Chrome.

A newly discovered spyware effort attacked users through 32 million downloads of extensions to Googles market-leading Chrome Web browser.

Credit: Elnur/Shutterstock

Awake Security researchers said they had identified a spyware effort that attacked users through 32 million downloads of add-ons to Google's Chrome Web browser.

Google said it has removed more than 70 of the malicious extensions from the official Chrome Web Store.

Awake's Gary Golomb said it was the farthest-reaching malicious Chrome store campaign identified to date, based on the number of downloads.

The extensions were designed to avoid detection by antivirus and security software that evaluates the reputations of Web domains, and to connect to a series of websites and transmitting information when someone used the browser to surf the Web on a home computer.

It is unclear who was behind the malware campaign, as its developers used fictitious contact information when they submitted the extensions to Google.

From Reuters
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Abstracts Copyright © 2020 SmithBucklin, Washington, DC, USA


 

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