Google Chrome patches even more serious security flaws

By Barclay Ballard
published

Google has discovered two more zero-day exploits

(Image credit: Shutterstock)

Google has released patches for two more serious Chrome (opens in new tab) vulnerabilities, making it a busy few weeks for its security team. Although recently discovered exploits have been identified by Google’s own Project Zero (opens in new tab) security team, the two new bugs were noticed by anonymous sources.

The new vulnerabilities are being tracked as CVE-2020-16013 and CVE-2020-16017 but it is not yet known if they are being used together as part of an exploit chain or if they are being deployed individually. However, Google did confirm (opens in new tab) reports “that exploits for CVE-2020-16013 and CVE-2020-16017 exist in the wild”.

Vulnerability CVE-2020-16013 had been described as involving inappropriate implementation in V8, the Chrome component that handles JavaScript code. While CVE-2020-16017 is a memory corruption bug affecting the Chrome component used to isolate one website’s data from another.

Another zero-day

It is not currently clear how much of a risk these two vulnerabilities pose to regular users, but Google certainly thought that they presented enough of a threat to act swiftly. The technology giant was informed of the bugs less than a week ago.

Google has had plenty of practice when it comes to issuing patches in the last few weeks. Since October 20, Google has issued five zero-day patches (including the two most recent ones). As with those earlier bugs, Chrome users simply need to update their web browser to the most recent version in order to remain protected.

For anyone that hasn’t updated Chrome for a little while, however, there probably isn’t a need to panic. Zero-day exploits are usually deployed against selected targets, so the general user needn’t rush too much to get the latest security patches installed.

Via ZDNet (opens in new tab)

Barclay Ballard
Barclay Ballard

Barclay has been writing about technology for a decade, starting out as a freelancer with ITProPortal covering everything from London’s start-up scene to comparisons of the best cloud storage services.  After that, he spent some time as the managing editor of an online outlet focusing on cloud computing, furthering his interest in virtualization, Big Data, and the Internet of Things. 



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