GOOGLE has issued an urgent update to its Chrome browser that closes critical security flaws that could be exploited by hackers.
The software upgrade is rolling out to the Chrome app on Windows PCs across the globe this week.
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The new version, 103.0.5060.114, includes four security fixes, three of which were outlined by Google in a short blog post.
One patches a high-severity, “zero-day” vulnerability that could have been exploited by cyber crooks.
A zero-day is a flaw in software that attackers have discovered before the vendor has become aware of it.
Google did not provide any details of the vulnerability in a bid to protect Chrome users from potential attacks.
The other two flaws patched by Google are also listed as high-severity but are not thought to have been exploited by crooks.
Billions of people across the globe use Google Chrome, making it the world’s most popular web browser.
As a result, it’s a popular target for hackers, who try to make use of bugs in the software to get access to people’s PCs or smartphones.
To update Chrome, click on the three-dot menu on the top-right of your Chrome window.
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Head to Help > About Google Chrome to see if the update is available for you.
An army of vigilante hackers hunt down bugs in software developed by companies such as Windows, Google and Apple.
Major tech firms are keen to catch and fix the flaws before they’re discovered by cyber crooks, who could use them to attack users.
They pay tech geeks thousands of dollars to find and report bugs that might prove useful to criminals.
Experts foiled a record number of serious security issues used by hackers last year.
Google said in a report earlier this year that bug hunters reported 58 in total for 2021, which includes a powerful cyber weapon used to snoop on Boris Johnson’s computer network.
The shocking figure was the highest ever since the tech firm began a scheme to stamp out hackers in 2014.
It broke the previous record set in 2015 by more than double.
Google warned that many of the so-called “zero-day exploits” found in the wild use similar techniques seen before.
The undesirable list included five against iPhone’s iOS, seven affecting Android and 14 linked to Chrome’s systems.
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This post first appeared on Thesun.co.uk
