Hey there, folks! Big news from the tech realm – Google Chrome has just rolled out a crucial security update to fix a major vulnerability. This flaw in the Chrome browser had been exposing users’ browsing history to websites, putting their privacy at risk, especially when dealing with malicious links set up by cybercriminals.
Google Chrome Flaw Exposed Browsing History
Apparently, this sneaky security issue had been lurking in Chrome for over 20 years, quietly jeopardizing users’ privacy. The flaw allowed websites to access users’ browsing history, which is a pretty serious breach of security.
In a detailed post, Google’s Engineer Kyra Seevers shed light on how the tech giant tackled this long-standing issue with Chrome 136.
Essentially, the problem stemmed from a simple UI feature – the color change of visited links from blue to purple, controlled by the CSS :visited selector. While this may seem harmless, it actually made it easy for attackers to track users’ browsing activities. By tricking users into visiting a malicious site, threat actors could log their browsing history and reveal previously visited links as purple, even if not clicked on the malicious site.
Google Deployed Link Partitioning As A Fix
To address this vulnerability, Google introduced :visited link partitioning in the latest Chrome release. This segregation prevents styling on visited URLs across unrelated websites, ensuring that visited links are only styled on sites where they were clicked.
According to Seevers, this partitioning stores link information like URL, top-level site, and frame origin, making the :visited history specific to the context in which the link was visited. This change enhances user privacy by limiting exposure to browsing activities.
Starting with Chrome 136, users can experience this enhanced security feature. And for those curious souls, you can enable it via chrome://flags by searching for “#partition-visited-link-database-with-self-links” in the search bar.
We’d love to hear your thoughts on this development. Share your opinions in the comments!
