Update Chrome As Soon As Possible: This Vulnerability Is Being Exploited
Web browsers are applications that have direct contact with the Internet. Therefore, hackers always look for the slightest chance to attack them. Usually, both Google and Mozilla, Microsoft, and other web browser developers are often continually monitoring the security of their browsers and correcting bugs before even hackers can discover them. However, sometimes these pirates get ahead, find a bug and endanger users with vulnerabilities such as the one just released and that affects all Google Chrome users.
Google’s web browser is the most used worldwide. And not only that, but many other browsers use the Chromium engine (like the new Edge), so they share a lot of code—both as for well and for worse.
A few hours ago, Google launched an emergency security patch for the users of its browser. Specifically for those who use the latest stable version, Chrome 80. This patch solved 3 vulnerabilities of great danger. One of these vulnerabilities, also, was being exploited by hackers. These security flaws affect Windows, Linux, and mac OS users alike, so all Google browser users are affected.
The Security Flaws That Have Put Us In Danger
The vulnerabilities that these security patch fixes are:
- Integer overflow failure in the Chromium ICU component.
- Vulnerability CVE-2020-6407 that allowed access beyond the limits of browser memory.
- Failure CVE-2020-6418 confusion type in the rendering engine of Chrome V8 JavaScript. This is the bug that was actively exploiting the Internet.
An external security investigator detected the first of the failures, and it cost Google $ 5,000 as a reward. Google Project Zero engineers themselves identified the other two shortcomings.
The three failures allowed any hacker to execute remote code on the victims’ computers. For this, it was only necessary to create a fake website designed to exploit the vulnerability and deceive the user, in whatever way, to visit that website.
Update Chrome 80 To Navigate Safely
You need to update to the latest version of Chrome to be protected from these serious security flaws. Specifically, the version that solves these vulnerabilities is 80.0.3987.122. Therefore, if we have this version or a more recent one, we will be protected.
The latest version of Google Chrome will be automatically downloaded and installed to all browser users. Also, if we want to force it, we have to open the browser menu, select Help> About, and check if we already have it. If not, it will be downloaded automatically.
These security flaws can also affect other Chromium-based browsers, such as the new Edge. Therefore, it is essential to make sure we always have the latest versions of browsers on our computers. This way, we can still navigate safely and avoid that a fault can put our security in check.
