Security News > 2020 > August > Chrome Web Store slammed again after 295 ad-injecting, spammy extensions downloaded 80 million times

Google's Chrome Web Store is once again under fire for poor policing of harmful extensions.

The bad extensions consist of fake ad blockers that inject adverts into search results rather than blocking them, fake ad blockers that engage in cookie stuffing to defraud advertisers, and extensions involved in spam-related abuse.

The Chrome Web Store, or CWS, hosts over 200,000 extensions that can be added to enhance the functionality of Google's Chrome browser, and other Chromium-based browsers like Microsoft Edge and Brave.

"Google fails with managing [the] Chrome Web Store and keeping it safe," wrote Andrey Meshkov, co-founder and CTO of AdGuard, a company that makes ad-blocking apps and extensions.

In January, Google had to temporarily close the Chrome Web Store to new paid extensions following a massive fraud campaign.

News URL

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2020/08/07/chrome_web_store_slammed/