Cybersecurity researchers revealed a technique where malicious web browser extensions can deceive users by creating pixel-perfect replicas of legitimate add-ons, leading to credential theft. These polymorphic extensions can disable real extensions temporarily, making it seamless for attackers to harvest sensitive information. The attack exploits user reliance on visual cues, particularly icons in the browser's toolbar. This method poses significant risks across all Chromium-based browsers, including Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge, as attackers can masquerade harmful extensions as helpful utilities.
The polymorphic extensions create a pixel perfect replica of the target's icon, HTML popup, workflows and even temporarily disables the legitimate extension, making it extremely convincing for victims to believe that they are providing credentials to the real extension.
The polymorphic extension attack is extremely powerful as it exploits the human tendency to rely on visual cues as a confirmation, focusing on the extension icons as a means of user interaction.
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