Fake PDF and search tools hijacked searches for 13.4 million Chrome users

Summary by Cyber Security News30 Oct 2026, 16:25 CET

About this summary. This is a short excerpt from the description that Malwarebytes Labs published with its article. Cyber Security News did not report or verify the underlying story. Read the original: https://www.malwarebytes.com/blog/news/2026/10/fake-pdf-and-search-tools-hijacked-searches-for-13-4-million-chrome-users

Ads promoted browser extensions as tools to find manuals, convert PDFs, or make searches safer. But many of these extensions sent users’ search queries through servers controlled by their operators. Socket researcher John Tuckner identified 319 extensions with an estimated 13.4 million installs over a decade.

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