There are hundreds of thousands of browser extensions designed to help us save time, tailor, and personalise our online experience and to help us be more productive. Whilst the majority do what they are supposed to do and what they are designed to do, some are not designed to help you at all.

If you are unfortunate enough to download a malicious browser extension without realising, it could harm your productivity and even flood your work with unwanted advertising. This is known as adware. It is a form of malicious software (malware) that is designed to bombard you with unwanted adverts. It can also change your search engine and send you to affiliate pages when you are making purchases. These activities generate revenue for the extension’s creators.

In a recent report from a cyber security company, it revealed more than 4 million of its customers have been attacked. This is by adware hiding in browser extensions over the last couple of years. Often people didn’t even realise they were under attack.

There is a darker scenario where these malicious extensions are hiding actual malware which can infect your computer. This can lead to sensitive data such as your logins or even payment details being stolen, and, of course, malware can spread across an entire network.

To keep your business and its data safe from the risk of malicious browser extensions, it is important you only ever download them from a reliable and trusted source. Read reviews and look at ratings, if a browser seems too good to be true it probably is.

As the business owner, you might also want to look into controlling which extensions can be installed by your team to prevent this from happening. Stay safe out there.

Published with permission from Your Tech Updates.