Anyone who uses the Chrome Browser should read this! You need to update your web browsing software immediately to the latest version of Chrome for your security. The new version of Chrome you should be getting is version 78.0.3904.87.
Why the rush? This is because the update has been released to patch up two severe vulnerabilities in the software that attackers are actively exploiting. The end-result of having someone exploit these vulnerabilities is a hijacked device. Obviously, no-one want this result.
The Chrome security team have said that both of the issues being patched are use-after-free vulnerabilities. Hackers can exploit this type of vulnerability to corrupt and/or modify data.
One of the issues affected Chrome’s audio component – CVE-2019-13720 – and the other affected was in the PDFium library – CVE-2019-13721.
Unfortunately, at the moment, there has been no news as to who is exploiting these Chrome security issues. But as an open exploit every man and his dog might be at it.
Google has released a security update like this just over a month ago. That update was also urgent. As well as this, it patched four use-after-free vulnerabilities. Earlier than that was March this year. The attackers were directing their exploitation towards Chrome’s FileReader component.
How to Update:
You want to go to “Help” and then press “About Google Chrome.” By doing this, you manually trigger the update process, so after that you need to restart the browser. Just to be sure it is best to re-check the version number to make sure it has in fact been updated correctly.
