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by John W. Simek, Vice President of Sensei Enterprises, Inc.

Chrome Browser Extension from AVG Exposes Personal Data of 9 Million Users

December 30, 2015

According to SC Magazine, if you install AVG antivirus software on your computer, it will force installation of a Chrome extension called AVG Web TuneUp. A vulnerability in the extension exposes the 9+ million users' browsing history, cookies and personal data to attackers. According to a Google Project Zero researcher, "This extension adds numerous JavaScript APIs to chrome, apparently so that they can hijack search settings and the new tab page. The installation process is quite complicated so that they can bypass the chrome malware checks, which specifically tries to stop abuse of the extension API."

Supposedly, the vulnerability has since been fixed and the fixed version will automatically update your installation.

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