The internet is a great place, you can do online shopping, chat with long-distance friends and search for pretty much any information you need. However, browsing the internet comes with many risks.
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Indeed, if you are not careful, your computer could get hacked, either from suspicious websites, emails and more. Google has issued a new warning for Chrome users as hackers have found a new way to infiltrate people’s devices.
Hackers are now using pop-up windows to access users' computers and personal information. Here’s everything you need to know and how you can prevent being hacked.
Google issues new warning concerning new scam
As reported by Daily Mail, Google has issued a warning to millions of Chrome users concerning ‘malicious pop-up windows’. Indeed, these pop-up windows or websites are being used by hackers to gain access to people’s personal information.
This means that people are vulnerable to a ‘zero day’ attack, which is when a hacker has found a weakness before the manufacturers have, in this case, Google, and it leaves the manufacturers zero days to solve the problem.
Google explained that the flaw in earlier Chrome versions ‘allowed a remote attacker to potentially exploit heap corruption via a crafted HTML page’, as per Daily Mail.
It can be hard to know whether a website or pop-up window is a scam as hackers can make them look like regular websites. However, if you do clock on a fake website, the hackers can gain access to your information.
Google advises all users to update Chrome
In order to protect its users, Google has recommended all Chrome users update their browser on a regular basis and to make sure their security measures are up to date. If you do both of these things, it means you don’t have to pay for anti-virus software.
To update Chrome, open the browser, click on the three dots on the top right-hand side of the page and click ‘Settings’.
Here, you should find an option ‘About Chrome’, this option will tell you if your Chrome is up to date, with the version number. Google recommends users to have the option ‘auto-updates’ selected, so you don’t have to worry about regularly checking if it is up to date.
Google’s latest update comes after Mandiant and Google's Threat Analysis Group found that there have been 87 zero-day attacks in 2023, which is 50% higher compared to 2022, as reported by Daily Mail.
A Google spokesperson told Techradar:
We saw this theme repeated across threat actors of all motivations, seeking vulnerabilities in products or components that provided broad access to multiple targets of choice.
Read more:
⋙ Urgent warning issued to Android users: Delete these malicious apps immediately
Sources used:
Daily Mail: ‘Google urges millions of Chrome users to update browsers NOW after uncovering flaw that lets hackers take over computers’
Techradar: ‘Google reveals the nastiest zero-days it tracked this year’
