Google Chrome is the leading web browser that is accessible to all and it has features like extensions that make it better. Extensions are the extra thing that you can add to your browser for extra features and they are actually pretty handy. Google chrome also has a store for such extensions as well from where you can add extensions to your browser. Now it was recently found by researchers that there were extensions that ere stealing data from users. This kind of data-stealing or breach but only people that use these extensions are the ones getting affected by it.
Around 500 of such extensions have been discovered by and this happened after Google was reported about such extensions. Researchers found 71 malicious extensions and reported it to Google which then leads to the identification of 430 more of such extensions. All these extensions were present on the Google Chrome Web Store and were removed later after they were identified. These malicious extensions collected browsing data from users and 1.7 million users were affected by this campaign. Users were picked off from legit websites by these extensions and were redirected to malware-laced pages. All the extensions were similar in functioning as per the researchers and so they found more that matched the pattern.
These extensions started working after the installation as it connected the user to the command and control or C2 server. It then stole the private browsing data from the user without them knowing. Users were redirected to phishing and malware-laced pages by these extensions from legit pages. Now all these extensions are taken down but it does raise security concerns as a large number of people were vulnerable to attackers. Google has stepped up its actions and is even making bounties to researchers for finding such extensions.