22 Nov, 2024

Google says “Enhanced protection” feature in Chrome now uses AI

Google has quietly updated the description of one of Chrome’s security features, “Enchaned protection,” to confirm that it will be powered by AI in a future release. It’s unclear what has changed, but as spotted by Leo on X, Google is updating its Enhanced protection mode in Chrome’s Safe Browsing feature to include AI-powered protection. This feature now uses AI […]

1 min read

Google’s mysterious ‘search.app’ links leave Android users concerned

Google has left Android users puzzled after the most recent update to the Google mobile app causes links shared from the app to now be prepended with a mysterious “search.app” domain. As the Google app is a popular portal for searching the web for Android users and delivers a personalized content news feed referred to […]

6 mins read

Google fixes two Android zero-days used in targeted attacks

Google fixed two actively exploited Android zero-day flaws as part of its November security updates, addressing a total of 51 vulnerabilities. Tracked as CVE-2024-43047 and CVE-2024-43093, the two issues are marked as exploited in limited, targeted attacks. “There are indications that the following may be under limited, targeted exploitation,” says Google’s advisory. The CVE-2024-43047 flaw is […]

2 mins read

Over 200 malicious apps on Google Play downloaded millions of times

Google Play, the official store for Android, distributed over a period of one year more than 200 malicious applications, which cumulatively counted nearly eight million downloads. The data was collected between June 2023 and April 2024 by threat intelligence researchers at Zscaler, who identified and analyzed malware families both on Google Play and other distribution platforms. […]

3 mins read

Google warns uBlock Origin and other extensions may be disabled soon

Google’s Chrome Web Store is now warning that the uBlock Origin ad blocker and other extensions may soon be blocked as part of the company’s deprecation of the Manifest V2 extension specification. “This extension may soon no longer be supported because it doesn’t follow best practices for Chrome extensions,” reads the Chrome Web Store page for […]

4 mins read

Google removes Kaspersky’s antivirus software from Play Store

Over the weekend, Google removed Kaspersky’s Android security apps from the Google Play store and disabled the Russian company’s developer accounts. Users have been reporting over the last week that Kaspersky’s products (including Kaspersky Endpoint Security and VPN & Antivirus by Kaspersky) are no longer available on Google Play in the United States and other world regions. Kaspersky confirmed the issue on the company’s official forums on […]

2 mins read

Fake WalletConnect app on Google Play steals Android users crypto

A crypto draining app mimicking the legitimate ‘WalletConnect’ project has been distributed over Google Play for five months getting more than 10,000 downloads. The malicious app used the name WallConnect and posed as a lightweight Web3 tool with various blockchain functionalities, offering to act as a proxy between cryptocurrency wallets and decentralized applications (dApps). The real […]

2 mins read

Google sees 68% drop in Android memory safety flaws over 5 years

The percentage of Android vulnerabilities caused by memory safety issues has dropped from 76% in 2019 to only 24% in 2024, representing a massive decrease of over 68% in five years. This is well below the 70% previously found in Chromium, making Android an excellent example of how a large project can gradually and methodically move to […]

4 mins read

New Android malware ‘Necro’ infects 11 million devices via Google Play

A new version of the Necro malware loader for Android was installed on 11 million devices through Google Play in malicious SDK supply chain attacks. This new version of the Necro Trojan was installed through malicious advertising software development kits (SDK) used by legitimate apps, Android game mods, and modified versions of popular software, such as Spotify, […]

3 mins read