Google fixes major vulnerability in Chrome with update 88

By the end of December 2020, Google Chrome accounted for 66 percent of the internet browser market share. This means over half the world uses Chrome to browse the internet and for something so popular, it is only logical that people would try to exploit it.

As Google points out in its blog, Security researcher Mattias Buelens has managed to find a serious security vulnerability in the Chrome browser’s WebAssembly and JavaScript engines that could allow hackers to run malicious code on a user’s computer. Google has not gone into details other than that but warns people that it does know of cases where this has been exploited.

While normally you will not really need to worry about Chrome updating itself since it just takes care of that on its own, but it will not hurt to check in this case. The latest update that fixes the issue is 88.0.4324.150, so you might want to check you are running that version. Just open your Chrome browser, click on the three dots on the top right next to your Google profile icon, navigate to help, and then click on ‘About Google Chrome’. If you are not updated, Chrome will automatically check for the latest update and patch itself.

Google has also said that it intends to keep details on the bug restricted till most users have received the fix. Google will also not tell anyone for now if a third-party library is affected, meaning they are going to keep mum till they know people have updated to the new version, which is probably for the best.