Are your staff using a malicious browser extension without realising it?

There are hundreds of thousands of browser extensions designed to help us to save time, be more productive, and personalise our online experience and whilst most of them do what they say they will there are some which are designed to do something a bit more sinister! Its not always clear that they are not as they first seem too as they will often do their advertised job too.

If you’re unfortunate enough to download a malicious browser extension without realising, it could harm your productivity, spam your computer with advertising or worse...

Adware, which is a type of malware or virus, typically tries to send you to pages which promote products or affiliate sites which generate revenue for the creator but sometimes they try and trick you into installing software or allowing access to the threat actor. This can lead to sensitive data such as your logins or even payment details being stolen. And of course, malware can spread across an entire network.

In a recent report from a cyber security company, it revealed more than 4 million of its customers have been attacked by adware hiding in browser extensions over the last couple of years. Often people didn’t realise they were under attack.

To keep your business and its data safe from the risk of malicious browser extensions, it’s important you only ever download them from reliable and trusted sources.

As the business owner, you might also look into controlling which extensions can be installed by your team.

Freethought Services can help with this, as well as looking at up-to-date software protection and security training for your team.

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