Google Chrome Caught Scanning Files On People’s Computers
The browser you likely use to read this article scans practically all files on your Windows computer. And you probably had no idea until you read this. Don’t worry, you’re not the only one.
On top of tracking all the websites you visit and sending it to Google’s servers, Chrome web browser is now scanning all your private files in the interest of “safety.”
From Vice:
The browser you likely use to read this article scans practically all files on your Windows computer. And you probably had no idea until you read this. Don’t worry, you’re not the only one.Last year, Google announced some upgrades to Chrome, by far the world’s most used browser—and the one security pros often recommend. The company promised to make internet surfing on Windows computers even “cleaner” and “safer ” adding what The Verge called “basic antivirus features.” What Google did was improve something called Chrome Cleanup Tool for Windows users, using software from cybersecurity and antivirus company ESET.
“Upgrades,” “security pros often recommend…”
Truly embarrassing.
In practice, Chrome on Windows looks through your computer in search of malware that targets the Chrome browser itself using ESET’s antivirus engine. If it finds some suspected malware, it sends metadata of the file where the malware is stored, and some system information, to Google. Then, it asks you to for permission to remove the suspected malicious file. (You can opt-out of sending information to Google by deselecting the “Report details to Google” checkbox.)
getting all your data to sell to advertisers and manipulate your politics, it’s all about keeping you safe, folks! Google’s not trying to swallow all the data in the world, they’re just expanding their “services” to include scanning all your files without your knowledge, nor explicit permission!
Kelly Shortridge of Security Scorecard caught Chrome scanning her files and posted it to Twitter where it went viral:
I was wondering why my Canarytoken (a file folder) was triggering & discovered the culprit was chrome.exe. Turns out @googlechrome quietly began performing AV scans on Windows devices last fall. Wtf m8? This isn’t a system dir, either, it’s in \Documents\
Here’s the source on the Windows device scanning: support.google.com/chrome/answer/… “Chrome helps you find suspicious or unwanted programs on your Windows computer.”
I’m also now wondering if this is why my box is crashing so oftenwhen I googled the errors before, advice was to uninstall third party AV & until now I didn’t think I had any.... ffs
Follow up from the google chrome security lead for those navigating the thread: twitter.com/justinschuh/st…
Update: another thread by @justinschuh from Chrome’s team to read (read before DMing him!): twitter.com/justinschuh/st…
Google employee Justin Schuh said there’s nothing to worry about:
I think it’s super unclear from that announcement that non-system files (ie personal / professional) files will also be scanned towards that goal. I’m actually really surprised you haven’t had pushback from enterprises (if they’re aware)
Just to be very clear, this is all local scans with a local signature engine—so no data from the scans should leave the system (i.e. it's absolutely not "cloud" AV). It's also a vastly narrower and less invasive scan than conventional AV/AM.
Don’t like your files being scanned without your permission? Tough s**t, it can’t be disabled.
I also have to double check, but I believe there's an enterprise opt-out, because this is really intended for unmanaged consumer systems (since they're the most commonly hijacked).
A correction: There is currently no enterprise policy to disable it (because enterprise policies have been abused in the past to hijack consumer systems) but I'm having the team investigate solutions to better address enterprise concerns.
Allowing you to opt out from a service you didn’t sign up for is “problematic,” says Google’s Schuh (whose Twitter shows he’s a far-left lunatic).
Really appreciate you responding & explaining (though I still really wish there was a consumer opt-out, even just in advanced settings). Will this be part of what you’ll be posting publicly?
The problem with consumer opt-outs is that they're the first switch that gets toggled during a hijack—so they end up being immediately self defeating. It's just a very hard set of concerns to balance.
If you like Chrome but don’t want Google spying on everything you do to use it against you, download Iridium, which is the same code as Chrome without all the spying and sending your data to Google. Firefox, Brave and Vivaldi are all also good alternatives. See, “How to Delete Your Google Data.”
If you haven’t watched Breitbart’s latest conference on Big Tech’s spying and political machinations, watch it now.
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Chrome Is Scanning Files on Your Computer, and People Are Freaking Out
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