Last Updated on 06/01/2022 by Nidhi Khandelwal
Google has released the first wave of Chrome updates for 2022, which address 37 security concerns, one of which is marked Critical and could be used to execute arbitrary code and take control of a victim’s PC.
The issue, which has been assigned the number CVE-2022-0096, is a use-after-free bug in the Storage component that might lead to everything from data corruption to the execution of malicious code on a compromised machine.
It’s also worth noting that 24 of the 37 weaknesses were discovered by outside researchers, including Google’s Project Zero programme, while the rest were discovered as part of the company’s continuing internal security work. Ten of the 24 bugs are classified as high-severity, another ten as medium-severity, and three as low-severity.
The upgrades follow a busy 2021 for Google, which saw the company patch up to 17 zero-day issues in the Chrome browser that were found to be being exploited in the public.
To reduce the risk of active exploitation, Chrome users should update to the newest version (97.0.4692.71) for Windows, Mac, and Linux by going to Settings > Help > ‘About Google Chrome.’
