Casa CEO Jeremy Welch believes some browser extensions can be used by cybercriminals to steal cryptocurrencies.
“Browser extensions carry big risks, and these risks have not yet been discussed,” Welch said at a Baltic Honeybadger conference in Riga.
He noted that browser extensions have access to a large number of different user data. Even access to the history of the browser allows fraudsters to find out the victim’s network habits and identify cases of visiting cryptocurrency wallets and exchanges.
“Make sure you haven’t flashed your cryptocurrency addresses anywhere,” the Casa CEO warned.
Another risk is that browser extensions steal user personal information. As an example, Welch demonstrated an extension that changes the “wallpaper” in a browser window. As it turned out, it also steals data that the user enters in various registration forms, including images. That is, attackers can gain access to a passport photo, or other documents of the user, while he does not even guess that his data has “leaked” into the hands of hackers.
“Everything seems to be fine and you don’t understand that your browser is leaking data. Awful, right? After all, we constantly use various extensions, ”Welch said.
According to him, such an extension may well replace the recipient address when the user sends his bitcoins somewhere. Thus, attackers can steal significant amounts of money in cryptocurrencies.
Welch noted that even a reliable and proven extension can receive a sudden update in which “undocumented features” appear. However, there is no simple solution to the problem.
“We need to discuss this problem, because now we are not even at the stage when real attacks happen with the help of extensions,” he concluded.
Recall that at the end of August, the custodian startup Casa launched the Node Heartbeats solution, which checks the availability of Bitcoin network nodes and rewards their owners for regular maintenance.
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