Security News
Google has fixed a high-severity vulnerability in its Chrome browser and is warning Chrome users that an exploit exists in the wild for the flaw. "The Chrome team is delighted to announce the promotion of Chrome 89 to the stable channel for Windows, Mac and Linux," according to Google on Tuesday.
This story examines the lopsided economics of extension development, and why installing an extension can be such a risky proposition. Infatica's code then uses the browser of anyone who has that extension installed to route Web traffic for the company's customers, including marketers or anyone able to afford its hefty monthly subscription charges.
In early 2021, a Chinese threat actor tracked as TA413 attempted to hack into the Gmail accounts of Tibetan organizations using a malicious browser extension, researchers with cybersecurity firm Proofpoint have discovered. In January and February 2021, the group was observed delivering the FriarFox extension, customized to specifically target the Firefox browser and provide attackers with access to and control of victims' Gmail accounts.
As browser-makers move to defang third-party cookies, marketers are increasingly switching to alternative tracking techniques. In 2019, Firefox was equipped with Enhanced Tracking Protection by default, blocking known trackers, third-party tracking cookies and cryptomining scripts.
Mozilla has revised the way the latest build of the Firefox browser handles HTTP cookies to prevent third-parties from using them to track people online, as part of improvements in build 86 of the code. The third-party cookies placed by these scripts can be read on other websites that also load tracking code and are often used to follow people from website to website in order to build interest profiles for behavioral ad targeting.
Boffins based in Belgium have found that a DNS-based technique for bypassing defenses against online tracking has become increasingly common and represents a growing threat to both privacy and security. In a research paper to be presented in July at the 21st Privacy Enhancing Technologies Symposium, KU Leuven-affiliated researchers Yana Dimova, Gunes Acar, Wouter Joosen, and Tom Van Goethem, and privacy consultant Lukasz Olejnik, delve into increasing adoption of CNAME-based tracking, which abuses DNS records to erase the distinction between first-party and third-party contexts.
Brave has patched up its privacy-focused web browser after it was spotted leaking its Tor users' dark-web habits. Onion domains visited by the browser to whatever DNS servers the software was configured to use for non-Tor websites, allowing whoever operates those DNS servers - or anyone who can snoop on the queries in transit - to figure out the kinds of hidden services frequented by an individual user.
Brave has fixed a privacy issue in its browser that sent queries for. Onion domains to public internet DNS resolvers rather than routing them through Tor nodes, thus exposing users' visits to dark web websites.
Cisco Talos has uncovered a credential-stealing trojan that lifts your login details from the Chrome browser, Microsoft's Outlook and instant messengers. Cisco Talos added: "Masslogger is a credential stealer and keylogger with the ability to exfiltrate data through SMTP, FTP or HTTP protocols. For the first two, no additional server-side components are required, while the exfiltration over HTTP is done through the Masslogger control panel web application."
Digital ad company Confiant, which claims to "Improve the digital marketing experience" for online advertisers by knowing about and getting rid of malicious and unwanted ads, has just published an analysis of a malvertising group it calls ScamClub. According to Confiant, the ScamClub crew took things to an even more aggressive level by actively targeting a bug in Apple's WebKit browser engine, the compulsory software core that every browser on your iPhone, including Safari, is required to use.