Experts Find Malicious Cookie Stuffing Chrome Extensions Used by 1.4 Million Users

Aug 31, 2022

Five imposter extensions for the Google Chrome web browser
masquerading as Netflix viewers and others have been found to track
users’ browsing activity and profit of retail affiliate
programs.

“The extensions offer various functions such as enabling users
to watch Netflix shows together, website coupons, and taking
screenshots of a website,” McAfee researchers Oliver Devane and
Vallabh Chole said ^[1]. “The latter borrows
several phrases from another popular extension called
GoFullPage.”

The browser add-ons in question – available via the Chrome Web
Store and downloaded 1.4 million times – are as follows –

Netflix Party (mmnbenehknklpbendgmgngeaignppnbe) – 800,000
downloads
Netflix Party (flijfnhifgdcbhglkneplegafminjnhn) – 300,000
downloads
FlipShope – Price Tracker Extension
(adikhbfjdbjkhelbdnffogkobkekkkej) – 80,000 downloads
Full Page Screenshot Capture – Screenshotting
(pojgkmkfincpdkdgjepkmdekcahmckjp) – 200,000 downloads
AutoBuy Flash Sales (gbnahglfafmhaehbdmjedfhdmimjcbed) – 20,000
downloads

The extensions are designed to load a piece of JavaScript that’s
responsible for keeping tabs on the websites visited and inject
malicious code into e-commerce portals, letting the attackers make
money through affiliate programs for purchases made by the
victims.

“Every website visited is sent to servers owned by the extension
creator,” the researchers noted. “They do this so that they can
insert code into eCommerce websites being visited. This action
modifies the cookies on the site so that the extension authors
receive affiliate payment for any items purchased.”

Also incorporated is a technique that delays the malicious
activity by 15 days from the time of installation of the extension
to avoid raising red flags.

The findings follow the discovery of 13 Chrome browser extensions ^[2] in March 2022 that were
caught redirecting users in the U.S., Europe, and India to phishing
sites and exfiltrate sensitive information.

As of writing, three of the four extensions are still available
on the web store, with Netflix Party
(mmnbenehknklpbendgmgngeaignppnbe) being the only add-on to be
purged. Users of the installed extensions are recommended to
manually remove them from their Chrome browser to mitigate further
risks.

References

^{^}
said
(www.mcafee.com)
^{^}
13
Chrome browser extensions (www.mcafee.com)

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OWASP TOP !0

Injection. Injection flaws, such as SQL, NoSQL, OS, and LDAP injection, occur when untrusted data is sent to an interpreter as part of a command or query. The attacker’s hostile data can trick the interpreter into executing unintended commands or accessing data without proper authorization. Broken Authentication. Application functions related to authentication and session management are often implemented incorrectly, allowing attackers to compromise passwords, keys, or session tokens, or to exploit other implementation flaws to assume other users’ identities temporarily or permanently. Sensitive Data Exposure. Many web applications and APIs do not properly protect sensitive data, such as financial, healthcare, and PII. Attackers may steal or modify such weakly protected data to conduct credit card fraud, identity theft, or other crimes. Sensitive data may be compromised without extra protection, such as encryption at rest or in transit, and requires special precautions when exchanged with the browser. XML External Entities (XXE). Many older or poorly configured XML processors evaluate external entity references within XML documents. External entities can be used to disclose internal files using the file URI handler, internal file shares, internal port scanning, remote code execution, and denial of service attacks. Broken Access Control. Restrictions on what authenticated users are allowed to do are often not properly enforced. Attackers can exploit these flaws to access unauthorized functionality and/or data, such as access other users’ accounts, view sensitive files, modify other users’ data, change access rights, etc. Security Misconfiguration. Security misconfiguration is the most commonly seen issue. This is commonly a result of insecure default configurations, incomplete or ad hoc configurations, open cloud storage, misconfigured HTTP headers, and verbose error messages containing sensitive information. Not only must all operating systems, frameworks, libraries, and applications be securely configured, but they must be patched/upgraded in a timely fashion. Cross-Site Scripting XSS. XSS flaws occur whenever an application includes untrusted data in a new web page without proper validation or escaping, or updates an existing web page with user-supplied data using a browser API that can create HTML or JavaScript. XSS allows attackers to execute scripts in the victim’s browser which can hijack user sessions, deface web sites, or redirect the user to malicious sites. Insecure Deserialization. Insecure deserialization often leads to remote code execution. Even if deserialization flaws do not result in remote code execution, they can be used to perform attacks, including replay attacks, injection attacks, and privilege escalation attacks. Using Components with Known Vulnerabilities. Components, such as libraries, frameworks, and other software modules, run with the same privileges as the application. If a vulnerable component is exploited, such an attack can facilitate serious data loss or server takeover. Applications and APIs using components with known vulnerabilities may undermine application defenses and enable various attacks and impacts. Insufficient Logging & Monitoring. Insufficient logging and monitoring, coupled with missing or ineffective integration with incident response, allows attackers to further attack systems, maintain persistence, pivot to more systems, and tamper, extract, or destroy data. Most breach studies show time to detect a breach is over 200 days, typically detected by external parties rather than internal processes or monitoring.

Experts Find Malicious Cookie Stuffing Chrome Extensions Used by 1.4 Million Users

References

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