Malicious Google Chrome extensions take screenshots, read passwords: Govt cyber security agency

The Computer Emergency Response Team of India (CERT-In), the national technology arm to combat cyberattacks and guard the Indian cyberspace on Wednesday said, Internet users should exercise caution while installing Google Chrome extensions as the company has removed over 100 malicious links after they were found collecting "sensitive" user data.

The malicious extensions had the ability to take screenshots, read the clipboard, harvest authentication cookies or grab user keystrokes to read passwords and other confidential information, it said.

As reported by a news agency, the country's cyber security agency, said it has been found that these extensions contained code to bypass Google Chrome's web store security scans.

"It has been reported that Google has removed 106 extensions of the Google Chrome browser from the chrome web store which were found collecting sensitive user data," the agency said in the advisory. "These extensions, reportedly posed as tools to improve web searches, convert files between different formats as security scanners and more," it added.

Users can visit the chrome extensions page and subsequently enable developer mode to see if they have installed any of the malicious extensions and then remove them from their browsers, the agency said, adding that users should not install extensions from unverified sources.