Google Fixes a Seventh Zero-Day Flaw in Chrome—Update Now

The holiday season is here, but software firms are still busy issuing fixes for major security flaws. Microsoft, Google, and enterprise software firm Atlassian have released patches for vulnerabilities already being used in attacks. Cisco also patched a bug deemed so serious, it was given a near-maximum CVSS score of 9.9.

Here’s everything you need to know about the patches released in November.

Google Chrome

Google ended November with a bang after issuing seven security fixes for Chrome, including an emergency patch for an issue already being used in real-life attacks. Tracked as CVE-2023-6345, the already exploited flaw is an integer overflow issue in Skia, an open source 2D graphics library. “Google is aware that an exploit for CVE-2023-6345 exists in the wild,” the browser maker said in an advisory.

Little is known about the fix at the time of writing; however, it was reported by Benoît Sevens and Clément Lecigne of Google’s Threat Analysis Group, indicating the exploit could be spyware-related.

The six other flaws fixed by Google and rated as having a high impact include CVE-2023-6348, a type-confusion bug in Spellcheck, and CVE-2023-6351, a use-after-free issue in libavif.

Earlier in the month, Google released fixes for 15 security issues in its widely used browser. Among the bugs fixed by the software giant are three rated as having a high severity. Tracked as CVE-2023-5480, the first is an inappropriate implementation issue in Payments, while the second, CVE-2023-5482, is an insufficient data validation flaw in USB with a CVSS score of 8.8. The third high-severity bug, CVE-2023-5849, is an integer overflow issue in USB.

Mozilla Firefox

Chrome competitor Firefox has fixed 10 vulnerabilities in the browser, six of which are rated as having a high impact. CVE-2023-6204 is an out-of-bound memory access flaw in WebGL2 blitFramebuffer, while CVE-2023-6205 is a use-after-free issue in MessagePort.

Meanwhile, CVE-2023-6206 could allow clickjacking permission prompts using the full-screen transition. “The black fade animation when exiting full screen is roughly the length of the anti-clickjacking delay on permission prompts,” Firefox owner Mozilla said. “It was possible to use this fact to surprise users by luring them to click where the permission grant button would be about to appear.”

CVE-2023-6212 and CVE-2023-6212 are Memory safety bugs, both with a CVSS score of 8.8, in Firefox 120, Firefox ESR 115.5, and Thunderbird 115.5.

Google Android

Google’s November Android Security Bulletin details fixes patched in this month, including eight in the Framework, six of which are elevation of privilege bugs. The worst flaw could lead to local escalation of privilege with no additional execution privileges needed, Google said in an advisory.

Google also fixed seven issues in the System, six of which are rated as having a high severity and one marked as critical. Tracked as CVE-2023-40113, the critical bug could lead to local information disclosure with no additional execution privileges needed.