Security News > 2020 > February > 500 Malicious Chrome Extensions Impact Millions of Users

After researchers first identified 71 malicious extensions and reported their findings to Google, the tech giant then identified 430 additional extensions that were also linked to the malvertising campaign, they said.

The extensions had almost no ratings on Google's Chrome Web Store, and the source code of the extensions are all nearly identical.

In 2018, four malicious extensions were discovered in the official Google Chrome Web Store with a combined user count of more than 500,000.

"There are approximately 200,000 extensions available on the Chrome store alone. What most users don't realize is that extensions have full access to all of the data on a page including your email, banking information and credit card numbers. While many extensions provide value added services, there's little to stop them from collecting and abusing user data."

"We do regular sweeps to find extensions using similar techniques, code, and behaviors, and take down those extensions if they violate our policies."

News URL

https://threatpost.com/500-malicious-chrome-extensions-millions/152918/