The Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In), a cybersecurity monitor under the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, has issued a warning to Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge users in India. CERT-in has classified the severity of the vulnerabilities in earlier versions of both of these browsers as ‘High’. A vulnerability note has been issued every month of this year for Google Chrome, Microsoft Egde by CERT-in.

“Multiple vulnerabilities have been reported in Microsoft Edge/Google Chrome which could be exploited by a remote attacker to execute arbitrary code or cause a denial of service condition on the targeted system,” CERT-in said. In simple terms, a bad actor can exploit these vulnerabilities to gain access to a user's device, running malicious code or denying them access, similar to a ransomware attack.

The warning has been issued for Microsoft Edge versions older then 113.0.1774.50, Google Chrome versions older 113.0.5672.126 for Linux/macOS and 113.0.5672.126/.127 for Windows. According to Statista, Chrome had about 86.32 percent of the browser market share in India as of December 2022.

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According to CERT-in, the problems in Microsoft Edge, the vulnerabilities were found in different modules of Edge, like the Autofill interface, Guest View, Navigation, and Developer Tools. Hackers could take advantage of these problems by tricking you into visiting a specially-made website or opening a specific file.

In Google Chrome, vulnerabilities were found in several aspects of the codebase as well as key elements of user interface. By sending carefully crafted requests to your computer, they could exploit these vulnerabilities and cause harm.

CERT-In recommends updating both browsers to the versions listed above to avoid any privacy breach concerns.

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First Published:May 23, 2023 2:05 PM IST