Google | Breaking Cybersecurity News | The Hacker News

Google has announced a new feature in its Chrome browser that lets its built-in Password Manager automatically change a user's password when it detects the credentials to be compromised. "When Chrome detects a compromised password during sign in, Google Password Manager prompts the user with an option to fix it automatically," Google's Ashima Arora, Chirag Desai, and Eiji Kitamura said . "On supported websites, Chrome can generate a strong replacement and update the password for the user automatically." The feature builds upon Password Manager 's existing capabilities to generate strong passwords during sign-up and flag credentials that have been detected in a data breach. Google told The Hacker News the feature hasn't been formally launched for end users, and that it's mainly geared towards developers so they can optimize their websites for once the feature launches. With the automated password change, Google said the idea is to reduce fric...

An unknown threat actor has been attributed to creating several malicious Chrome Browser extensions since February 2024 that masquerade as seemingly benign utilities but incorporate covert functionality to exfiltrate data, receive commands, and execute arbitrary code. "The actor creates websites that masquerade as legitimate services, productivity tools, ad and media creation or analysis assistants, VPN services, crypto, banking and more to direct users to install corresponding malicious extensions on Google's Chrome Web Store (CWS)," the DomainTools Intelligence (DTI) team said in a report shared with The Hacker News. While the browser add-ons appear to offer the advertised features, they also enable credential and cookie theft, session hijacking, ad injection, malicious redirects, traffic manipulation, and phishing via DOM manipulation. Another factor that works in the extensions' favor is that they are configured to grant themselves excessive permissions via...

Google on Wednesday released updates to address four security issues in its Chrome web browser, including one for which it said there exists an exploit in the wild. The high-severity vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2025-4664 (CVSS score: 4.3), has been characterized as a case of insufficient policy enforcement in a component called Loader. "Insufficient policy enforcement in Loader in Google Chrome prior to 136.0.7103.113 allowed a remote attacker to leak cross-origin data via a crafted HTML page," according to a description of the flaw. The tech giant credited security researcher Vsevolod Kokorin (@slonser_) with detailing the flaw in X on May 5, 2025, adding it's aware "an exploit for CVE-2025-4664 exists in the wild." "Unlike other browsers, Chrome resolves the Link header on sub-resource requests," Kokorin said in a series of posts on X earlier this month. "The issue is that the Link header can set a referrer-policy. We can specify uns...

Google has agreed to pay the U.S. state of Texas nearly $1.4 billion to settle two lawsuits that accused the company of tracking users' personal location and maintaining their facial recognition data without consent. The $1.375 billion payment dwarfs the fines the tech giant has paid to settle similar lawsuits brought by other U.S. states. In November 2022, it paid $391 million to a group of 40 states. In January 2023, it paid $29.5 million to Indiana and Washington. Later that September, it forked out another $93 million to settle with California. The case, originally filed in 2022, related to unlawful tracking and collection of user data, regarding geolocation , incognito searches , and biometric data , tracking users' whereabouts even when the Location History setting was disabled and collecting the biometric data without informed consent. "For years, Google secretly tracked people's movements, private searches, and even their voiceprints and facial geometry...

Google on Thursday announced it's rolling out new artificial intelligence (AI)-powered countermeasures to combat scams across Chrome, Search, and Android. The tech giant said it will begin using Gemini Nano , its on-device large language model (LLM), to improve Safe Browsing in Chrome 137 on desktops. "The on-device approach provides instant insight on risky websites and allows us to offer protection, even against scams that haven't been seen before. Gemini Nano's LLM is perfect for this use because of its ability to distill the varied, complex nature of websites, helping us adapt to new scam tactics more quickly," the company said . Google noted that it's already using this AI-driven approach to tackle remote tech support scams, which often seek to trick users into parting with their personal or financial information under the pretext of a non-existent computer problem. This works by evaluating the web pages using the LLM for potential signals that are...

Google has revealed that it observed 75 zero-day vulnerabilities exploited in the wild in 2024, down from 98 in 2023 but an increase from 63 the year before. Of the 75 zero-days, 44% of them targeted enterprise products. As many as 20 flaws were identified in security software and appliances. "Zero-day exploitation of browsers and mobile devices fell drastically, decreasing by about a third for browsers and by about half for mobile devices compared to what we observed last year," the Google Threat Intelligence Group (GTIG) said in a report shared with The Hacker news. "Exploit chains made up of multiple zero-day vulnerabilities continue to be almost exclusively (~90%) used to target mobile devices." While Microsoft Windows accounted for 22 of the zero-day flaws exploited in 2024, Apple's Safari had three, iOS had two, Android had seven, Chrome had seven, and Mozilla Firefox had one flaw that were abused during the same period. Three of the seven zero-days ...

Cybersecurity researchers have demonstrated a proof-of-concept (PoC) rootkit dubbed Curing that leverages a Linux asynchronous I/O mechanism called io_uring to bypass traditional system call monitoring. This causes a "major blind spot in Linux runtime security tools," ARMO said. "This mechanism allows a user application to perform various actions without using system calls," the company said in a report shared with The Hacker News. "As a result, security tools relying on system call monitoring are blind' to rootkits working solely on io_uring." io_uring, first introduced in Linux kernel version 5.1 in March 2019, is a Linux kernel system call interface that employs two circular buffers called a submission queue (SQ) and a completion queue (CQ) between the kernel and an application (i.e., user space) to track the submission and completion of I/O requests in an asynchronous manner. The rootkit devised by ARMO facilitates communication between ...

Google on Tuesday revealed that it will no longer offer a standalone prompt for third-party cookies in its Chrome browser as part of its Privacy Sandbox initiative. "We've made the decision to maintain our current approach to offering users third-party cookie choice in Chrome, and will not be rolling out a new standalone prompt for third-party cookies," Anthony Chavez, vice president of Privacy Sandbox at Google, said . "Users can continue to choose the best option for themselves in Chrome's Privacy and Security Settings." Back in July 2024, the tech giant said it had abandoned its plans to deprecate third-party tracking cookies and that it intends to roll out a new experience instead that lets users make an informed choice. Google said feedback from publishers, developers, regulators, and the ads industry has made it clear there are "divergent perspectives" on making changes that could affect the availability of third-party cookies. In its...

In what has been described as an "extremely sophisticated phishing attack," threat actors have leveraged an uncommon approach that allowed bogus emails to be sent via Google's infrastructure and redirect message recipients to fraudulent sites that harvest their credentials. "The first thing to note is that this is a valid, signed email – it really was sent from no-reply@google.com," Nick Johnson, the lead developer of the Ethereum Name Service (ENS), said in a series of posts on X. "It passes the DKIM signature check, and Gmail displays it without any warnings – it even puts it in the same conversation as other, legitimate security alerts." The email message informs prospective targets of a subpoena from a law enforcement authority asking for unspecified content present in their Google Account and urges them to click on a sites.google[.]com URL in order to "examine the case materials or take measures to submit a protest." The Google Si...

Google on Wednesday revealed that it suspended over 39.2 million advertiser accounts in 2024, with a majority of them identified and blocked by its systems before it could serve harmful ads to users. In all, the tech giant said it stopped 5.1 billion bad ads, restricted 9.1 billion ads, and blocked or restricted ads on 1.3 billion pages last year. It also suspended over 5 million accounts for scam-related violations. In comparison, Google suspended over 12.7 million advertiser accounts, stopped 5.5 billion bad ads, restricted 6.9 billion ads, and blocked or restricted ads on 2.1 billion pages in 2023. The top six ad policy violations included ad network abuse (793.1 million), trademark misuse (503.1 million), personalized ads (491.3 million), legal requirements (280.3 million), financial services (193.7 million), and misrepresentation (146.9 million), among others. Most of the pages on which its ads were blocked or restricted include sexual content, dangerous or derogatory con...

Cybersecurity researchers have disclosed details of a new vulnerability impacting Google's Quick Share data transfer utility for Windows that could be exploited to achieve a denial-of-service (DoS) or send arbitrary files to a target's device without their approval. The flaw, tracked as CVE-2024-10668 (CVSS score: 5.9), is a bypass for two of the 10 shortcomings that were originally disclosed by SafeBreach Labs in August 2024 under the name QuickShell . It has been addressed in Quick Share for Windows version 1.0.2002.2 following responsible disclosure in August 2024. A consequence of these 10 vulnerabilities, collectively tracked as CVE-2024-38271 (CVSS score: 5.9) and CVE-2024-38272 (CVSS score: 7.1), was that they could have been fashioned into an exploit chain to obtain arbitrary code execution on Windows hosts. Quick Share (previously Nearby Share) is a peer-to-peer file-sharing utility similar to Apple AirDrop that allows users to transfer files, photos, videos, a...

Mozilla has released updates to address a critical security flaw impacting its Firefox browser for Windows, merely days after Google patched a similar flaw in Chrome that came under active exploitation as a zero-day. The security vulnerability, CVE-2025-2857, has been described as a case of an incorrect handle that could lead to a sandbox escape. "Following the recent Chrome sandbox escape (CVE-2025-2783), various Firefox developers identified a similar pattern in our IPC [inter-process communication] code," Mozilla said in an advisory. "A compromised child process could cause the parent process to return an unintentionally powerful handle, leading to a sandbox escape." The shortcoming, which affects Firefox and Firefox ESR, has been addressed in Firefox 136.0.4, Firefox ESR 115.21.1, and Firefox ESR 128.8.1. There is no evidence that CVE-2025-2857 has been exploited in the wild. The Tor Project has also shipped a security update for the Tor Browser (versio...

Cybersecurity researchers have shed light on a new phishing-as-a-service (PhaaS) platform that leverages the Domain Name System ( DNS ) mail exchange ( MX ) records to serve fake login pages that impersonate about 114 brands. DNS intelligence firm Infoblox is tracking the actor behind the PhaaS, the phishing kit, and the related activity under the moniker Morphing Meerkat . "The threat actor behind the campaigns often exploits open redirects on adtech infrastructure, compromises domains for phishing distribution, and distributes stolen credentials through several mechanisms, including Telegram," the company said in a report shared with The Hacker News. One such campaign leveraging the PhaaS toolkit was documented by Forcepoint in July 2024, where phishing emails contained links to a purported shared document that, when clicked, directed the recipient to a fake login page hosted on Cloudflare R2 with the end goal of collecting and exfiltrating the credentials via Tele...

Google has released out-of-band fixes to address a high-severity security flaw in its Chrome browser for Windows that has been exploited in the wild as part of attacks targeting organizations in Russia.  The vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2025-2783   (CVSS score: 8.3), has been described   as a case of "incorrect handle provided in unspecified circumstances in Mojo on Windows." Mojo refers to a collection of runtime libraries that provide a platform-agnostic mechanism for inter-process communication (IPC). As is customary, Google did not reveal additional technical specifics about the nature of the attacks, the identity of the threat actors behind them, and who may have been targeted. The vulnerability has been plugged in Chrome version 134.0.6998.177/.178 for Windows. "Google is aware of reports that an exploit for CVE-2025-2783 exists in the wild," the tech giant acknowledged in a terse advisory. It's worth noting that CVE-2025-2783 is the first activel...

At least four different threat actors have been identified as involved in an updated version of a massive ad fraud and residential proxy scheme called BADBOX , painting a picture of an interconnected cybercrime ecosystem. This includes SalesTracker Group, MoYu Group, Lemon Group, and LongTV, according to new findings from the HUMAN Satori Threat Intelligence and Research team, published in collaboration with Google, Trend Micro, Shadowserver, and other partners. The "complex and expansive fraud operation" has been codenamed BADBOX 2.0. It has been described as the largest botnet of infected connected TV (CTV) devices ever uncovered. "BADBOX 2.0, like its predecessor, begins with backdoors on low-cost consumer devices that enable threat actors to load fraud modules remotely," the company said . "These devices communicate with command-and-control (C2) servers owned and operated by a series of distinct but cooperative threat actors." The threat actors ar...

The GSM Association (GSMA) has formally announced support for end-to-end encryption (E2EE) for securing messages sent via the Rich Communications Services (RCS) protocol, bringing much-needed security protections to cross-platform messages shared between Android and iOS platforms. To that end, the new GSMA specifications for RCS include E2EE based on the Messaging Layer Security (MLS) protocol via what's called the RCS Universal Profile 3.0 . "The new specifications define how to apply MLS within the context of RCS," Tom Van Pelt, technical director of GSMA, said . "These procedures ensure that messages and other content such as files remain confidential and secure as they travel between clients." This also means that RCS will be the first "large-scale messaging service" to have support for interoperable E2EE between different client implementations from different providers in the near future. It's worth noting that Google's own implemen...

Google has announced the rollout of artificial intelligence (AI)-powered scam detection features to secure Android device users and their personal information. "These features specifically target conversational scams, which can often appear initially harmless before evolving into harmful situations," Google said . "And more phone calling scammers are using spoofing techniques to hide their real numbers and pretend to be trusted companies." The company said it has partnered with financial institutions to better understand the nature of scams customers are encountering, thereby allowing it to devise AI models that can flag suspicious patterns and deliver real-time warnings over the course of a conversation without sacrificing user privacy. These models run completely on-device , alerting users in the event of a likely scam. Users then have an option to either dismiss or report and block the sender. The setting is enabled by default and applies only to conversatio...

Google has released its monthly Android Security Bulletin for March 2025 to address a total of 44 vulnerabilities, including two that it said have come under active exploitation in the wild. The two high-severity vulnerabilities are listed below - CVE-2024-43093 - A privilege escalation flaw in the Framework component that could result in unauthorized access to "Android/data," "Android/obb," and "Android/sandbox" directories, and their respective sub-directories. CVE-2024-50302 - A privilege escalation flaw in the HID USB component of the Linux kernel that could lead to a leak of uninitialized kernel memory to a local attacker through specially crafted HID reports. It's worth noting that CVE-2024-43093 was previously flagged by Google in its security advisory for November 2024 as actively exploited in the wild. It's not clear what prompted the tech giant to issue the alert a second time. When reached for comment, Google told The Hacker...

Google is working on a new security feature for Android that blocks device owners from changing sensitive settings when a phone call is in progress. Specifically, the in-call anti-scammer protections include preventing users from turning on settings to install apps from unknown sources and granting accessibility access. The development was first reported by Android Authority. Users who attempt to do so during phone calls are served the message: "Scammers often request this type of action during phone call conversations, so it's blocked to protect you. If you are being guided to take this action by someone you don't know, it might be a scam." Furthermore, it blocks users from giving an app access to accessibility services over the course of a phone call. The feature is currently live in Android 16 Beta 2, which was released earlier this week. With this latest addition, the idea is to introduce more friction to a tactic that has been commonly abused by maliciou...