Man, there seem to be a lot of high-profile issues with the Chrome browser lately. Google issued an update yesterday with a security patch for an “in the wild” bug that exploits a use after free error. The good news is that the fix is being applied just two days after it was discovered by an anonymous user. The bad news is that this is becoming depressingly frequent.
As BleepingComputer reports, this is the fifth time in 2024 that Google has needed to issue an urgent update for Chrome, following no less than three zero-day exploits discovered at the Pwn2Own contest in March. For those of us without a compsci degree like yours truly, a zero-day exploit is a means of attacking software that takes advantage of an unknown flaw. Two of the other 2024 issues were also use after free errors, which occur when a program incorrectly uses dynamic memory after an operation is finished.
And just to make you a little more anxious, remember that these are the issues we know about and that Google has fixed. The very nature of zero-day exploits means that there are almost certainly more out there, which may or may not be known and in use. Google isn’t sharing the full details of the latest one until a greater percentage of people are running the latest version.
That being said, Chrome is a huge priority for Google now that it’s the most-used web browser on the planet. (That’s true across all platforms including mobile, but Chrome has pretty much the same 65 percent share of the PC/Mac laptop and desktop market, too.) And any software as complex and frequently updated as Chrome is going to have inevitable flaws.
So yeah, make sure you keep your browser up to date. Don’t let that “click here to update” message linger in the menu bar for too long, or in cases like this, force it by heading to Options > Help > About Google Chrome.
Author: Michael Crider, Staff Writer, PCWorld
Michael is a 10-year veteran of technology journalism, covering everything from Apple to ZTE. On PCWorld he's the resident keyboard nut, always using a new one for a review and building a new mechanical board or expanding his desktop "battlestation" in his off hours. Michael's previous bylines include Android Police, Digital Trends, Wired, Lifehacker, and How-To Geek, and he's covered events like CES and Mobile World Congress live. Michael lives in Pennsylvania where he's always looking forward to his next kayaking trip.