Listen to Chrome, its telling you something really important!

The evolving PC technology is somehow contributing to the increased threats and vulnerabilities. Latest on this front is that your PCs can spy on your activity via not just the camera, but are able to hear you as well and in a prudent way. And for this to take place, you just need Google Chrome and a Microphone installed on your system.

Websites of today are capable of interacting with a number of peripherals on PC, of course only after the users’ consent which can take place by simply clicking the yes button. For picture uploading on a site you just need to give the in-built camera the permission to click your picture. This can however be prevented if the browser takes the user away from the webpage. This throws light on an unnoticed truth that the websites, without consent of users are continuing to control some part of the users activities carried online.

A recent finding by an Israeli software developer highlighted that vulnerabilities in the coding of Google Chrome which when exploited by hackers, can turn any PC into an ideal source of spying. The only thing needed will be convincing a user for a voice recognition capability, the hacker after this will be able to record sound via a mic, even after the site page has been closed. Also, a red blinking indicator present on the bar task of the browser which shows recording in process is turned off, disguising users that the process has terminated.

To present his proof of this finding, this Israeli hacker recorded a video that how browsing a compromised site that uses speech to text capabilities, can cause the sound to get recorded in the background. The sound after recording is passed to Google servers to get in text form, which is finally used by the hackers for unethical reasons.

What makes it worse is the fact that most such speech-aware sites use secured https connection, which means Chrome recalled the webpage about using microphone previously and so permission for the same again is never asked. The vulnerability can be tweaked as well, where specific words will trigger the start of the recording without even asking for any permission. Means you have a readymade spying tool working on your PC.

Surprisingly however, Google already knew of this loophole in September itself, and the software developer even made Google aware about this vulnerability. Also, followed by this notification, representatives at the company confirmed about the bug being fixed. Meanwhile, this was not published even after four months, indicating how casually the developers at this browser reacted.

It’s thus recommended that users of Chrome web browser should stay away from using such speech-aware websites. Also, another task that can be done is offloading the Chrome browser covering processes and bookmarks as well, this way Chrome would be abstained from recording anything or even leaking data into the hands of cyber attackers.

The author is a Browser support expert deals in providing Mozilla Firefox Support , Safari Support, Google Chrome Support , Opera Support and Internet Explorer Support . Support can be availed at 1-888-753-5164 toll free.