Two Chrome extensions that should be removed right away because they contain a virus: here are the ones
Viruses run fast on the web but, despite attempts to avoid them, sometimes they can hide in the most disparate places, even in Chrome extensions.
The news has come from Reddit, through the report of a user, Jammed_Death, who has shed light on some strange behavior recently detected on the two incriminated extensions. These are nanodefender and nanoadblocker and, before behaving like malware, like any self-respecting ad blocker they were installed to block unwanted advertisements and banners on websites around the net. However, now that their original function is gone, the two Chrome extensions would act as a vehicle for users' information to be sent to a group of developers, unrelated to its creator.
Nanodefender and nanoadblocker: the antecedent
According to what has been reported on Reddit, everything would have started from the sale of the two extensions by its developer to a "group of Turkish developers", as they would have been defined by the same creator during a conversation on Github, the hosting service for software projects.
Nanodefender and nanoadblocker: remove them now
According to the original developer, the best way to get rid of the problem would be to remove the two extensions immediately. In the meantime, he has reported the add-ons to Google as malware, thus triggering an automatic removal process by the browser.
In fact, when this is done, Chrome directly removes the extension, preventing it from being inadvertently installed due to user distraction. This is not the case with Microsoft Edge, despite its close link with Google's browser, which is also based on the Chromium web browser created by the Mountain View giant.
The serious security problem would not affect the version of the extension released for Mozilla Firefox browser. The add-on of the Mozilla Foundation web client would have been developed by another person, unrelated to the issue that affected the Chrome version, and for the time being it should run the same risks.