Vulnerable To Hacking, Google Issues Warning To 2 Billion Chrome Users

Google warns its users to always upgrade their Chrome browser. (photo: formbee.com/unsplash)

JAKARTA - Google Chrome has more than two billion users worldwide and dominates the web browser market. This fact makes it a prime target for hackers. Now Google has issued a warning for the fourth important upgrade or upgrade in two months.

In an official blog post, Google has revealed seven 'High' rated security threats have been discovered in Chrome with vulnerabilities affecting Chrome users on all major operating systems: Windows, MacOS, and Linux.

Google is currently giving a little about the drawbacks. This is standard practice as companies seek to limit information to stop the spread of these vulnerabilities to hackers and give users time to protect themselves. As a result, here's what Chrome users should do now:

High — CVE-2021-30598: Confusion Type in V8. Reported by Manfred Paul

High — CVE-2021-30599: Confusion Type in V8. Reported by Manfred Paul

High — CVE-2021-30600: Use after free in Printing. Reported by 360 Alpha Lab

High — CVE-2021-30601: Use after free in the Extensions API. Reported by 360 Alpha Lab

High — CVE-2021-30602: Use after free on WebRTC. Reported by Cisco Talos

High — CVE-2021-30603: Racing on WebAudio. Reported by Google Project Zero

High — CVE-2021-30604: Use after free in ANGLE. Reported by SecunologyLab

According to Gordon Kelly, Senior Contributor of Forbes, "Type Confusion in V8" is the open-source JavaScript engine at the heart of Chrome. “WebRTC” (Real-time web communication) is a technology that allows us to transfer streaming audio and video data between browsers and mobile applications. “ANGLE” (Almost Native Graphics Layer Engine) is Google's open-source cross-platform graphics engine abstraction layer. Printing and Extensions is self-explanatory.

Historically, all of these have been used by hackers to execute code to take control of the target computer. Chrome's latest zero-day hack (where hackers are known to exploit vulnerabilities before Google can patch them) is a V8 flaw.

To combat this new threat, all Chrome users should go to Settings > Help > About Google Chrome. If your browser version on Linux, macOS, and Windows is listed as 92.0.4515.159 or higher, you're safe. Otherwise, the About screen, will prompt you to update and restart your browser. You must do this immediately.

It's a credit to Google that fixes for high-level attacks are usually released within days of being discovered, but their effectiveness still hinges on billions of users updating and restarting their browsers.

Chrome is a great browser, but attacks are on the rise and there have been eight Chrome hacks this year. Now it's important to keep Chrome up to date. Go check now.