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A Third of All Chrome Extensions Request Access To User Data on Any Site
More than a third of all Google Chrome extensions ask users for permission to access and read all their data on any website, a recent survey conducted by US cyber-security firm Duo Labs of over 120,000 Chrome extensions has revealed. From a report: The same survey also found that roughly 85 percent of the 120,000 Chrome extensions listed on the Chrome Web Store don't have a privacy policy listed, meaning there's no legally-binding document describing how extension developers are committing to handling user data. Additional survey findings include the fact that 77 percent of the tested Chrome extensions didn't list a support site, 32 percent used third-party JavaScript libraries that contained publicly known vulnerabilities, and nine percent could access and read cookie files, some of which are used for authentication operations.
1/3rd of Chrome extensions request a required permission for the extension to actually do what it says.
Seriously... 1/3rd? I'm surprised it's that low.