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Firefox and Chrome Extensions That Block Add-On Management

posted by janrinok on Monday January 22 2018, @12:02PM   Printer-friendly
from the problem-and-solution dept.

Apparition writes:

A new breed of malicious Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome extensions uses techniques to make their removal much more difficult.

Malwarebytes revealed in a blog post how these extensions block user access to the add-on management page of the browser and therefore removal from within the browser.

The Chrome extension Tiempo en colombia en vivo was available on the official Chrome Web Store but was distributed mostly on third-party websites.

The browser extension monitors open tabs while it runs. If the user opens chrome://extensions/, it will redirect the request to chrome://apps/?r=extensions automatically. This is done so that the user cannot remove the extension as it is not listed on the apps page.

The Firefox add-on FF Helper Protection shows similar traits. It monitors open tabs for the string about:addons to close the tab automatically if it is found.

Both extensions have in common that they prevent users from accessing the add-on management interface of the browser.

The article includes detailed instructions on how to remove the malicious Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome extensions.

 

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 22 2018, @02:30PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 22 2018, @02:30PM (#626071)

    The first time I needed to find some settings in Firefox I actually had to search for it online before I found that stupid about page. In the old days, I would just click somewhere at the top of the browser and some helpful menu would show up where I could find everything I needed. Seems they recovered from that mistake as its now at least loadable from the menus again.