Chrome 157 Ships 213 Security Fixes, Seven Rated Critical
Users on desktop are being asked to update now, since the release patches a large batch of serious memory flaws.
Google has moved Chrome 157 to its stable channel with fixes for 213 vulnerabilities, seven of them rated critical. The most serious is a buffer overflow in Dawn, the cross-platform implementation of the WebGPU standard, which earned its reporter a $10,000 payout, while a memory corruption flaw in the ANGLE graphics abstraction layer drew a $1,000 reward. The remaining five critical bugs, four use-after-free issues and one more buffer overflow, carry no disclosed bounty, and Google reported two of them itself. Another 77 high-severity flaws are included, of which only two bounties were disclosed, and Google has paid out $31,000 in total while still deciding on 39 others. Builders should update promptly to 157.0.8103.38 or .39 on desktop, though the advisory does not mention any of these bugs being exploited in the wild.
Why it matters
For most people using Chrome on Windows, macOS or Linux, the practical change is a browser update that closes a large set of known vulnerabilities, seven of them rated critical. The most serious, a buffer overflow in the WebGPU implementation Dawn, was valued at a $10,000 bounty, which signals how dangerous the flaw was judged to be. Google's advisory does not state that any of these bugs have been exploited in the wild, so the risk is that unpatched browsers stay exposed to flaws that are now public, not that attacks are already underway. Because the fixes cover graphics and memory handling, the update matters most for anyone who keeps Chrome open to untrusted websites.
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