Particle.news

30+ AI-Themed Chrome Extensions Steal Emails and Credentials From 260,000–300,000 Users

Researchers say the campaign persists through reuploaded variants on the Chrome Web Store.

Overview

  • LayerX Security identified a single coordinated operation, dubbed AiFrame, linking more than 30 extensions via a shared codebase and the tapnetic[.]pro backend.
  • Several listings remained available at publication, including AI Assistant with 60,000 users and a Featured badge, while AI Sidebar was reuploaded after Gemini AI Sidebar’s removal and reached 70,000 users.
  • The extensions render remote interfaces through full-screen iframes, letting operators change functionality without store updates and exfiltrate page data including titles, metadata, and authentication details.
  • Roughly half include Gmail-specific scripts that read conversation view content and drafts directly from the DOM and send the text to attacker-controlled servers.
  • Some variants support remotely triggered speech transcription via the Web Speech API; researchers published IOCs and advise uninstalling affected extensions and rotating passwords and API keys, as Google had not issued a comprehensive response at publication.