PSA: Last Friday, Google released an update for the stable branch of the desktop versions of Chrome which fixes a high-priority vulnerability. Users who haven’t updated it in the last few days should probably do so now.
If you use Google Chrome, you should probably update to the latest version as soon as possible. Go to Settings (three stacked dots)->Help->About Google Chrome. Here you will find your browser version of the browser you currently have installed while also automatically updating Chrome to the latest version.
Google released version 99.0.4844.84 late last week to address a severe zero-day security exploit. It’s already going out to users, but Google’s security advisory says it will likely take days or weeks to reach everyone. We got an “Update failed (error: 12)” when trying to update, but refreshing fixed the problem.
The company notified users it was aware of an exploit labeled CVE-2022-1096. Google doesn’t say much about it, only that an anonymous tip reported a Type Confusion bug in V8 — Chrome’s JavaScript engine. Type Confusion vulnerabilities emerge when the code calls an object without type-checking it. Microsoft notes that this is dangerous because it can allow unauthorized code execution.
Chrome, along with Firefox and Microsoft Edge, are steadily approaching version 100. While this is a milestone to be celebrated, it could also cause problems because some websites may have trouble reading the user agents of browsers with triple-digit version numbers. Google and Mozilla are working to mitigate the issue before Chrome reaches version 100 this week and Firefox reaches it in May.