[dba-Tech] Google removes 200 ad-injectors chrome extensions

[John R Bartow]

FYI: One of the reasons I've stated here that I've had more problems with
chrome over the last year than other major browsers. And lately I've been
seeing a lot of Chromebook problems.
The last sentence (while true, but almost a "we can't stop it" statement)
makes me think that the former IE team from Microsoft is not running the
Chrome division ;-)

Article:
In the War against Ad injectors, Google has started removing ad-injecting
extensions for its Chrome browser after it discovered as many as 200 Chrome
extensions that exposed Millions of its users to malicious software and
fraudulent activities.

While working with a team of researchers from the University of California,
Berkeley, the search engine giant found that over 5 percent of its users
were infected with 'Ad Injectors' - software that inserts ads or replace
existing ads into the pages you visit while browsing the web.

In last three months, Google received more than 100,000 complaints from its
Chrome users about ad injection, which is far more than what the company
receives for network errors, performance problems, or any other issue.

Ad Injectors are sometimes more than just intrusive. A visitor to a website
can be tricked into downloading an unwanted software and programs that could
result in a major security risk, just what happened in the recent Superfish
incident.

WHAT GOOGLE FOUND?
While conducting the research, researchers examined more than 100 Million
page views of Google websites across Chrome, Firefox, and Internet Explorer
(IE) on different operating systems globally, and here's what they found:
. Ad injectors are not an issue with only Windows operating system. Instead
they are present on all operating systems including Mac and affects all web
browsers including Chrome, Firefox, and IE.
. More than 5 percent of users visiting Google websites are infected by at
least one ad injector. Within the group, half of the users have at least two
injectors installed, and almost one-third have at least four.
. 34 percent of Chrome extensions injecting advertisements were classified
as "outright malware."
. Researchers discovered 192 fraudulent Chrome extensions that infected
about 14 Million users.
GOOGLE BLOCKED ABOUT 200 CHROME EXTENSIONS
However, the search engine giant has since disabled those fraudulent Chrome
extensions. Moreover, Google is also refining the techniques it used to
catch these kinds of deceptive extensions to scan all new and updated
extensions.

In addition, the company is also making changes to its AdWords policies in
order to prevent advertisers from offering users shady downloads.

"We [are] constantly working to improve our product policies to protect
people online," software engineer Nav Jagpal of Google wrote in a blog post.
"We encourage others to do the same. We [are] committed to continuing to
improve this experience for Google and the Web as a whole."
However, users also need to beware of what they download and install on
their computers and how they manage the security of their systems, because,
in the end, it is only you who need to take care of your security.