A total of one and a half million users have installed three dangerous extensions for Chrome – without anyone noticing. They pretend to be a secure service, but in reality they serve malicious purposes.

The three new malware were observed by security researchers at Reason Labs and were distributed by malicious actors with pirated versions of popular games such as GTA, Sims 4, Heroes 3 and Assassins Creed – but other games may have been affected.

Once unsuspecting users installed illegal games obtained via torrent, a malicious extension was also installed on their devices, completely unnoticed and without user intervention.

Two of the extensions, netSave for Chrome and netPlus for Microsoft Edge, were named by researchers, and the programs' JavaScript code consisted of more than 20,000 lines, which made it difficult to parse, he wrote. com. gHacks.

After installation, the extension “runs” a fake VPN and even displays its own user interface. However, it actually performs recovery activities in the infected browser and also disables similar legitimate extensions.

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Reason Labs reported the Russian-language add-ons to Google, which resulted in them being removed from the official App Store – because they were also available that way.

In addition to Chrome, the malware can also be installed in Microsoft Edge, which is based on the same technology, and it's worth checking installed software to see if there's an unknown VPN app hiding there.

However, the above case once again draws attention to the fact that software and games should only be purchased from legal sources. Software purchased from a torrent site or other illegal source not only harms the developer but can also put our computer at risk. Through these codes, malicious codes can be installed on our devices, which can then also obtain our passwords and banking data.

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