In the first half of 2022, over 24 000 South African users were affected by threats that hid in browser extensions, which is three times more than the number of users affected by the same threat throughout the whole of last year.
During the first half of 2022, the company’s researchers also recorded an increase in such threats in Kenya and Nigeria. In Kenya, 14 800 users encountered browser extension threats – a 59% increase when compared to 2021, and in Nigeria, 4 200 users were affected – seven times more than the number of users affected the year before.The most notable threat that spreads by pretending to be a legitimate browser extension is adware, or unwanted software designed to bring ads up on the screen.
Kaspersky says malicious and unwanted add-ons have also been distributed through official marketplaces. In 2020, Google removed 106 malicious browser extensions from its Chrome Web Store. Each of these was being used to siphon sensitive user data, such as cookies and passwords, and even take screenshots.
When users attempted to download a cracked software installer from third-party resources, such as SolarWinds Broadband Engineers Keymaker, they actually received a dangerous NullMixer Trojan, which then self-installed FB Stealer on the device, which looked less suspicious to the user because it mimicked the harmless and standard-looking Chrome extension "Google Translate."
For example, when developers of these add-ons sell user data to other companies, they can potentially expose this data to someone who was not supposed to see it.
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