![]() ![]() ![]() SuperFish gained notoriety earlier this year when it transpired Lenovo had been shipping it with all their low-end Windows laptops. The new owners then laced the plugin with the SuperFish adware, which injected advertising into pages and spawned pop-ups. It started life as a legitimate product released by a hobbyist developer, but was bought for a four figure sum in 2014. AddToFeedly was a Chrome plugin that allowed users to add a website to their Feedly RSS reader subscriptions.Not much slips past their watch, at least when it comes to the Google Chrome Web Store. Google, surprisingly, keeps quite a tight ship. If an extension is asking to do things that seem unusual, you then have cause for suspicion.īut occasionally, as we all know, malware slips through. Each extension on the Google Chrome App Store is explicit about the permissions required, and can not exceed the permissions you give it. Google aims to ensure that users are informed about the risks associated with installing browser plugins. A conversation that extends beyond a security or technology and a question for the internet-using society at large." But the challenge going forward for companies like Google is policing the extensions and defining the limits of what’s acceptable behavior. "Don’t get me wrong, I welcome the move by Google to remove these malicious extensions – some of these should never have been made public to start with. To paraphrase, one mans legitimate software is another mans identity-stealing, privacy-compromising malicious virus coded in the bowels of hell. "Making the distinction between good and bad software is becoming increasingly difficult. Javvad Malik, Security Advocate at Alienware, thinks it's a step in the right direction but notes that the biggest challenge in keeping users safe is an issue of education. These are simple steps, but are for the most part effective at keeping users safe. ![]()
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