Using Fake Reviews to Find Dangerous Extensions
Summary: KrebsOnSecurity traced fake positive reviews on a counterfeit Microsoft Authenticator Chrome extension to a network of fraudulent extensions, finding in roughly 24 hours of digging through chrome-stats.com more than 100 positive reviews, 39 fake reviewer accounts, 45 malicious extensions with close to 100,000 combined downloads, and 25 developer accounts tied to multiple banned apps. The extensions spoofed brands including Adobe, Amazon, Facebook, HBO, Microsoft, Roku and Verizon, requested no special permissions, and instead prompted users for personal and financial data; most were available for two to three months before Google removed them.
What you should know: A fake Microsoft Teams extension drew 16,200 downloads and a counterfeit CapCut nearly 24,000 in about two months, and the same recovery email appeared across many developer accounts - meaning a small number of anonymous operators reached close to 100,000 installs before takedown.
Read the original at Krebs on Security ↗
- Topics
- Fraud & Scams
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