MobileNews

Google ‘looking into’ Chromebook bug that can reveal your location data from guest mode

A useful feature of Chrome OS is Guest Mode, which essentially acts as an incognito mode for a friend or family member to use your machine without access to any of your data. Unfortunately, though, there’s a bug that can actually reveal your location data to another user who is on Chromebook’s guest mode.

This bug comes from how Chrome OS handles Wi-Fi logs. That data, when accessed, can tell a knowledgeable user which Wi-Fi networks that machine has accessed for up to the past seven days. Combined with other data, this could expose the location history of the Chromebook’s owner, all without requiring a password or any clever methods. The data is just sitting right there in local storage.

This issue – which was first flagged by the Committee on Liberatory Information Technology, a group of people that includes former Googlers (via The Verge) – isn’t something most people should need to worry about, as it requires local, physical access to the device. Still, it’s an issue the committee claims Google has known about “for years” without acting on it and one that Andrés Arrieta, a researcher for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, says is “of particular concern for targeted and marginalized communities,” adding that “security teams should try to better understand the potential repercussions of those bugs for all their users and include that in their assessment and prioritization of bugs.”

When reached out to by The Verge regarding the bug, Google said:

We are looking into this issue. In the meantime, device owners can turn off guest mode and disable the creation of new users.

More on Chrome OS:



Author: Ben Schoon
Source: 9TO5Google

Related posts
AI & RoboticsNews

OpenAI makes ChatGPT’s image generation available as API

AI & RoboticsNews

Former DeepSeeker and collaborators release new method for training reliable AI agents: RAGEN

AI & RoboticsNews

Google adds more AI tools to its Workspace productivity apps

Cleantech & EV'sNews

Chevy Blazer SS EV first drive, over 600hp and 300 miles of range!

Sign up for our Newsletter and
stay informed!