Paladin's anti-hacking browser extension looks like snake oil, experts say

guest · Jun 13, 2018

Paladin's anti-hacking browser extension looks like snake oil, experts say
A security researcher found several issues with the code.
June 13, 2018
https://www.zdnet.com/article/paladin-security-app-snake-oil-security-experts-say/

Security "snake oil" is a real problem. These are the apps, products, or services that offer little worth or value but profess to fix a problem. They're harmless enough if nobody gets hurt, but the people who seek out safety and security are often the ones who need it the most.

The latest purported security solution comes from Paladin, a year-old startup, which claims its newly launched Chrome extension can, according to its press release, "helps consumers avoid getting hacked entirely." (This is an immediate red flag, as no security expert would ever make that claim.) The free extension promises to block phishing attempts, secure public Wi-Fi connections, and prevent cross-site scripting flaws that can trick a user into handing over sensitive information.

Here are some of the highlights. [...]
Wethington found that passwords were further scrambled using a static salt value, [...] Digging further, Wethington also found that the extension's proxy feature has no backup in the event of an outage. If the company's website goes down or suffers a denial-of-service attack, the user's browser will appear offline. [...] We also found hardcoded Firebase credentials in the code at the time of launch [...] the extension has no mechanism to block malicious ads [...] the company launched without any meaningful quality checks. [...]
Click to expand...

Rasheed187 · Jun 16, 2018

Wow, sounds really bad. But to be fair, I don't know if snake oil is the right word to use, it's not like the extension is doing absolutely nothing.

https://www.meetpaladin.com/paladin-browser-protection-for-chrome

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