Google have released a security update this week for the Chrome desktop app for Windows, Mac, and Linux. This update patches 11 vulnerabilities, one of which is a zero-day flaw that is known to be exploited in the wild, and another has been given a critical severity rating. This is the fifth security update for Chrome so far this year that has included a patch for a zero-day vulnerability.  

A critical use-after-free vulnerability tracked as CVE-2022-2852 has been given a CVSS rating of 9/10. This type of flaw occurs in the browser’s memory management, where memory is released but the pointer to this now free memory location is not cleared. This allows attackers to then target this memory location to manipulate the browser and potentially execute code supplied by the attacker. This flaw is present in Chrome’s federated credential management API (FedCM), which is a security feature that tells the user what information or privilege levels are being given to the website they are visiting. Although this flaw is present in both the Mac and Windows applications, there is not currently evidence of this being exploited.  

This update also provides a fix for a zero-day vulnerability that is known to have been exploited in the wild. CVE-2022-2856 is a high severity vulnerability, that occurs in ‘Intents’, a feature of Chrome that allows for other applications or web services to be launched directly from a web page. This zero-day flaw is caused by insufficient input validation for untrusted inputs. This provides many opportunities to attackers, such as to override protections, create buffer overflow, and perform SQL injection and cross-site scripting. Although this was first reported in mid-July, a patch for this actively exploited flaw has only just been released. 

Users should update their Chrome desktop app to the newest version in order to apply these security patches, which is version 104.0.5112.101 for Mac and Linux, and version 104.0.5112.102/101 for Windows. This should be automatically applied if automatic updates are switched on. Alternatively, this update can be applied manually by opening the ‘Settings’ page in Chrome, and then clicking on ‘About Chrome’. This shows the current version of the application that is running, and provides the instructions needed to apply any available updates.