Massive Collection of Malicious Chrome VPN Extensions Exposed
A large number of malicious Chrome VPN extensions were discovered impersonating legitimate brands to route user traffic through a centralized SOCKS5 proxy, enabling potential man-in-the-middle attacks. The extensions bypassed Chrome's security measures and included deceptive practices like fake premium features and policy evasion techniques.
A massive set of 737 free VPN and proxy extensions have been found to mainly target Russian-speaking users seeking access to blocked services with an aim to intercept browser traffic and route them through a proxy infrastructure.
The extensions, published across at least 40 Chrome Web Store developer accounts, racked up 75,486 installs. Of those identified, 274 have been found to impersonate 66
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