Google Patches Chrome Zero-Day Under Active Attack

Google upped the ante for Halloween frights when it issued a Chrome browser update to patch two vulnerabilities, one of which is a high-severity zero-day being actively exploited in the wild.

Chrome version 78.0.3904.87 is for Windows, Mac, and Linux, and it will roll out over the coming days and weeks. It includes security fixes for CVE-2019-13721 and CVE-2019-13720, both of which it classifies as high-severity. "Google is aware of reports that an exploit for CVE-2019-13720 exists in the wild," Google's Srinivas Sista wrote in a blog post on the update.

The vulnerability under attack is a use-after-free bug, a type of memory corruption flaw that attackers could use to execute malicious code. Google credits Anton Ivanov and Alexey Kulaev of Kaspersky Lab with discovering CVE-2019-13720, which the researchers reported on Oct. 29.

"Access to bug details and links may be kept restricted until a majority of users are updated with a fix," Sista said. "We will also retain restrictions if the bug exists in a third party library that other projects similarly depend on, but haven't yet fixed."

The DHS Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency has issued an advisory on the patches, encouraging users and admins to review Chrome's release and apply the updates.

Read more details here.

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