Recently, it has been reported that hackers have hacked into and compromised many Google Chrome extensions, compromising the security and privacy of millions of users around the world.
The attacks were suspected to have been executed by a highly sophisticated threat actor. It involved control over the development accounts of different extension developers, and thus allowed the attackers to inject malicious code into the legitimate extensions, thereby being able to steal sensitive data from the users, for example, passwords, history of the web pages surfed, and even details of their financial information.
Among the most prominent victims of this attack was Cyberhaven, a company in cybersecurity whose Chrome extension was hacked Christmas Eve. Malicious code within the extension was aimed at collecting sensitive information from users’ systems, where attackers would have been able to access private corporate information.
Cyber experts already express that the impact could be monumental while the extent of damages created by these attacks is yet to be ascertained. The extensions can lead hackers to the corporate network, intellectual property thefts, and disruption of operations.
This incident is an example of the ever-growing threat from cyberattacks on popular software platforms. The more our lives move online, the more important good security measures are. It cannot be overemphasized how important it is to safeguard the threat of cyberattacks against both developers and users alike.
