Security vulnerabilities are an inevitable part of digital life. Google recently discovered 11 for Chrome — two of which are in the wild and active — and promptly issued a fix. As such, you should update as soon as possible.
What’s the deal with these Google Chrome vulnerabilities?
On Monday, Sept. 13, Google released a security update for Chrome that patched 11 known issues, including two the company identified as actively exploited zero-day vulnerabilities. That means that bad actors took advantage of two of these security vulnerabilities without the knowledge of Google or other relevant entities.
Google says that “anonymous researchers” are responsible for reporting these two critical bugs to the company. The reports, which came through Sept. 8, detailed that these vulnerabilities — named CVE-2021-30632 and CVE-2021-30633 — are exploited through an out of bounds write in V8, and a use after free in Indexed DB API. The new update that patches these issues is version 93.0.4577.82.
How do I update Chrome to patch these vulnerabilities?
It’s possible that Chrome updated automatically for you in the background, so these patches may already be installed. If not, you might see an update button appear on your browser, in one of the following three colours:
- Green: An update was released less than 2 days ago.
- Orange: An update was released about 4 days ago.
- Red: An update was released at least a week ago.
At the time of this article’s publication, the update is new enough that you should only see a green button. Down the road, you might end up seeing one of the other two colours.
To update, click the More button (the three vertical dots) in the menu bar. If there’s an update available, click “Update Google Chrome.” If you don’t see this option, Google says your browser is fully up to date. But there’s another way to double-check, while also confirming which version of Chrome you’re running:
How do I check which version of Chrome I’m running?
Head back to the More button, click Help, then choose “About Google Chrome.” You’ll see your current version of Chrome, while the app searches for any available updates. If one is available, you can follow the on-screen instructions to install it from here. Remember, the new version is 93.0.4577.82.
Google wasn’t the only one in the news with security problems: The same day Google announced this patch, Apple released a new update for all of its current products. The company revealed an active zero-click iMessage bug that can infect a user’s iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, or Mac without the user needing to do anything at all. If you haven’t updated your Apple products to the latest software version, make sure to do so now.
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