Google Chrome 86 is Rolling Out With 35 Security Fixes, Including a Critical Bug in New Password Features

Recently, Google Chrome 86 is being rolled out with 35 security fixes, including a critical bug in the new password feature. Google Chrome is being updated on Tuesday to a well-built channel for popular platforms like Windows, Mac, and Linux; and will be soon roll out over the upcoming days.

Moreover, the versions of the browser for Android and iOS were also published on Tuesday, and soon it will be accessible on Google Play Store and the App Store this week.

According to the security researchers, this new version also brings the security fix for the critical flaw CVE-2020-15967 existing in Chrome’s payments part.

New Password Check Feature

The new versions of Chrome 86 for Android and iOS will likewise come with all new security features. In these new features, it will send a copy of the user’s usernames and passwords by utilizing a particular form of encryption. 

Once it’s done with the encryption, after then, it lets Google check them against a list of passwords that are known to be compromised. We all know that passwords are used as a defense to any site or app, and that’s why improving passwords are quite essentials as the threat actors always target the passwords.

However, in this case, the security experts have claimed that they are trying to improve password security on both the platform, Android and iOS devices by notifying the users.

This new version stores a thoroughly hashed and encrypted copy of the data, and after that, when Chrome users log into a website, the feature conveys a strongly hashed and encrypted version of their username and password to Google.

Google covers all the encrypted database that includes all “unsafe” usernames and password and shares the identical anonymous hash prefix of account data, and later it ensures that all the username and password details are not exposed during the whole process.

Flaws Fixed by External Security Experts

• CVE-2020-15967 (Critical): Use after free in payments. Reported by Man Yue Mo of GitHub Security Lab on 2020-09-11
• CVE-2020-15968 (High): Use after free in Blink. Reported by Anonymous on 2020-09-09
• CVE-2020-15969 (High): Use after free in WebRTC. Reported by Anonymous on 2020-09-03
• CVE-2020-15970 (High): Use after free in NFC. Reported by Man Yue Mo of GitHub Security Lab on 2020-07-22
• CVE-2020-15971 (High): Use after free in printing. Reported by Jun Kokatsu, Microsoft Browser Vulnerability Research on 2020-08-07
• CVE-2020-15972 (High): Use after free in audio. Reported by Anonymous on 2020-08-13
• CVE-2020-15990 (High): Use after free in autofill. Reported by Rong Jian and Guang Gong of Alpha Lab, Qihoo 360 on 2020-09-30
• CVE-2020-15991 (High): Use after free in the password manager. Reported by Rong Jian and Guang Gong of Alpha Lab, Qihoo 360 on 2020-09-30
• CVE-2020-15973 (Medium): Insufficient policy enforcement in extensions. Reported by David Erceg on 2020-07-17
• CVE-2020-15974 (Medium): Integer overflow in Blink. Reported by Juno Im (junorouse) of Theori on 2020-07-10
• CVE-2020-15975 (Medium): Integer overflow in SwiftShader. Reported by Anonymous on 2020-07-29
• CVE-2020-15976 (Medium): Use after free in WebXR. Reported by YoungJoo Lee(@ashuu_lee) of Raon Whitehat on 2020-08-31
• CVE-2020-6557 (Medium): Inappropriate implementation in networking. Reported by Matthias Gierlings and Marcus Brinkmann (NDS Ruhr-University Bochum) on 2020-05-15
• CVE-2020-15977 (Medium): Insufficient data validation in dialogs. Reported by Narendra Bhati (https://twitter.com/imnarendrabhati) on 2020-06-22
• CVE-2020-15978 (Medium): Insufficient data validation in navigation. Reported by Luan Herrera (@lbherrera_) on 2020-08-14
• CVE-2020-15979 (Medium): Inappropriate implementation in V8. Reported by Avihay Cohen @ SeraphicAlgorithms on 2020-09-11
• CVE-2020-15980 (Medium): Insufficient policy enforcement in Intents. Reported by Yongke Wang(@Rudykewang) and Aryb1n(@aryb1n) of Tencent Security Xuanwu Lab (腾讯安全玄武实验室） on 2020-06-08
• CVE-2020-15981 (Medium): Out of bounds read in audio. Reported by Christoph Guttandin on 2020-08-28
• CVE-2020-15982 (Medium): Side-channel information leakage in cache. Reported by Luan Herrera (@lbherrera_) on 2020-01-07
• CVE-2020-15983 (Medium): Insufficient data validation in webUI. Reported by Jun Kokatsu, Microsoft Browser Vulnerability Research on 2020-04-30
• CVE-2020-15984 (Medium): Insufficient policy enforcement in Omnibox. Reported by Rayyan Bijoora on 2020-05-07
• CVE-2020-15985 (Medium): Inappropriate implementation in Blink. Reported by Abdulrahman Alqabandi, Microsoft Browser Vulnerability Research on 2020-06-25
• CVE-2020-15986 (Medium): Integer overflow in media. Reported by Mark Brand of Google Project Zero on 2020-06-29
• CVE-2020-15987 (Medium): Use after free in WebRTC. Reported by Philipp Hancke on 2020-09-14
• CVE-2020-15992 (Medium): Insufficient policy enforcement in networking. Reported by Alison Huffman, Microsoft Browser Vulnerability Research on 2020-07-28
• CVE-2020-15988 (Low): Insufficient policy enforcement in downloads. Reported by Samuel Attard on 2020-06-08
• CVE-2020-15989 (Low): Uninitialized Use in PDFium. Reported by Gareth Evans (Microsoft) on 2020-07-22

Other Features

Google Chrome 86 further comes with all versatile security features, including Safety Check on iOS and Android. This feature is applied to see all the compromised passwords. After that, it notifies the users if Safe Browsing is allowed and whether Chrome is updated or not with the latest security measures.

Google Chrome 86 also involves mixed-form warnings on desktop and Android to inform and to notify the users before presenting a non-secure file form that’s embedded in an HTTPS page. 

This new version of Google Chrome fixes all seven high-severity vulnerabilities that were use-after-free flaws ranging. Those are the ones affecting Chrome’s printing (CVE-2020-15971), audio (CVE-2020-15972), password manager (CVE-2020-15991), and WebRTC (CVE-2020-15969) elements (WebRTC is a protocol for rich-media web communication).