How to Protect Your Google Chrome Browser from the Latest Vulnerability
Millions of Google Chrome users have been urged to update the browsing app after researchers uncovered a dangerous “high-level” vulnerability. The tech giant on Thursday rolled out measures to fix the high-severity security flaw caused by a bug that is said to have been exploited by cyber attackers.
The vulnerability, assigned as the CVE identifier CVE-2024-5274, is a type confusion bug in the V8 JavaScript and WebAssembly engine – and was flagged by the Google Threat Analysis team and Chrome Security on May 20. Type confusion security breaches occur when a program attempts to access a resource with an incompatible type.
The security breach has been causing an “out-of-bounds memory access” issue in Chrome’s V8 JavaScript engine. The vulnerability was already being actively exploited before Google patched it. Experts have now urged Google Chrome users to upgrade to Chrome version 125.0.6422.112/.113 for Windows and macOS, and version 125.0.6422.112 for Linux to mitigate potential threats.
Users of Chromium-based browsers such as Microsoft Edge, Brave, Opera, and Vivaldi are also advised to apply the fixes as and when they become available.
List of Zero-Day Security Threats in 2024
- CVE-2024-0519 – Out-of-bounds memory access in V8
- CVE-2024-2886 – Use-after-free in WebCodecs
- CVE-2024-2887 – Type confusion in WebAssembly
- CVE-2024-3159 – Out-of-bounds memory access in V8
- CVE-2024-4671 – Use-after-free in Visuals
- CVE-2024-4761 – Out-of-bounds write in V8
- CVE-2024-4947 – Type confusion in V8
How to Stay Safe
To protect yourself from the zero-day vulnerability, you should update your Chrome browser immediately. First, head to your device and open the Chrome browser. At the top right, click the three-dot menu icon and then tap on Settings. On the left, click About Chrome – while here, Chrome will check for updates and download them automatically. If and when an update is ready, click “Relaunch to update” to apply it.
Additional Tips
There are a few things you can do to protect your device from malware and vulnerabilities. For starters, only install apps from the Google Play Store – this will help to ensure that the apps you download are safe. Be careful when clicking on links in emails or text messages as these often lead to phishing websites. It helps a lot to use a security app with malware protection on your device.
It comes after Google revealed an all-seeing AI camera tool that remembers where you left your glasses and other belongings. In a demo video, Google showed how a person asked “Where did I leave my glasses?” and the tool instantly recalled seeing them. “To be truly useful, an agent needs to understand and respond to the complex and dynamic world just like people do — and take in and remember what it sees and hears to understand the context and take action,” explained Demis Hassabis, boss of Google’s AI division DeepMind. “It also needs to be proactive, teachable and personal, so users can talk to it naturally and without lag or delay.”
The tech giant says it has also improved how voice assistants sound so they’re more natural. Google announced a raft of major upgrades to its AI efforts as it fights to keep up with ChatGPT creator OpenAI. The announcement comes a day after OpenAI surprised the world again with its new Chat-GPT4o tech that can also see things and react. Bosses showed how it could solve mathematics just by holding the camera in front of a piece of paper, as well as figuring out a person’s mood simply by looking at their face.
The Fight for AI
Analysis by Jamie Harris, Senior Technology and Science Reporter. The AI battleground is seriously heating up as all the big guns in tech fight it out for a slice of the action. Google’s annual I/O event has been in the calendar for months and OpenAI brutally announced a surprise “spring update” would happen the day before. One expert described Chat-GPT4o as making other voice assistants look “utterly primitive”. Let’s not forget Apple and Amazon? Apple is reportedly “nearing” a deal with OpenAI to improve Siri on iPhone. And Amazon is racing to upgrade Alexa with some AI too. All this is just in the voice assistant arena. AI is becoming unavoidable. Everything from internet searches – as Google announced today – to the photos you take on your phone has some form of AI influence these days.