Google Chrome’s zero-day vulnerability could let attacker gain full control of your system, here’s how to stay safe

Highlights:

• Google discloses zero-day vulnerability in Google Chrome.
• The flaw could be used by attackers to gain control of a victim’s system.
• The vulnerability is said to be due to the involvement of a memory mismanagement bug in the FileReader web API.

 

Google recently seeded the new version 72.0.3626.121 of Chrome and stated that the new version patches a security flaw. It did not detail the vulnerability (vuln) at the time, but did say that it’s aware of the exploit for the flaw, called CVE-2019-5786, which exists in the wild. The company has now published a blog post that reveals that the flaw was a 0-day (zero-day) vulnerability, meaning it was possibly being exploited since there was no patch available for it at the time. Some additional information is now available on the flaw, thanks to a Google Security Blog post by Clement Lecigne of Google's Threat Analysis Group. 

Before we delve into the details, we suggest that you immediately check and update the Chrome browser on your devices to version 72.0.3626.121. As per the blog post detailing the vuln, Google reported two zero-day vulns that were not disclosed publicly. One of them affected Google Chrome while the other one affects Microsoft Windows OS. There is no precise information on what the CVE-2019-5786 vulnerability does but Google says that it is present in “Use-after-free in FileReader.” 

As per the Center for Internet Security (CIS), “Successful exploitation of this vulnerability could allow an attacker to execute arbitrary code in the context of the browser. Depending on the privileges associated with this application, an attacker could then install programs; view, change, or delete data; or create new accounts with full user rights.” The new vuln involves a memory mismanagement bug that is present in the FileReader web API. The flaw could not only be used to read unauthorised files but is also said to be much more harmful as it could be used for Remote Code Execution (RCE). RCE could allow an attacker to gain control, install malware and do many other things on a user’s device. 

To be safe from this threat, the first thing one should do is update their Google Chrome browser on all of their devices. In case there is no option to update, for some reason, one should refrain from visiting malicious websites and run software without admin rights. Switching to another browser is always an option in case none of the recommendations work for you. 

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