Mozilla removed 23 Firefox add-ons today after it discovered that they were recording user information and then sending it to a remote server. The list of add-ons includes “Web Security,” an add-on with more than 220,000 active users, which was the first of many to be caught recording and sending user data to a server in Germany.
Rob Wu, a Mozilla engineer, confirms that he did research into how this particular add-on works, and after deeming it malicious and dangerous, he removed it.
Rob's curiosity was piqued by a comment he read on Reddit, and he voluntarily proceeded to investigate the add-on's source code, where he confirmed that the data was being sent to a third party.
Then, using webextaware, he searched all publicly available Firefox add-ons, and analyzed them to check for similar patterns. Using this method, he discovered another 20 add-ons that work in the same way.
Rob reported his findings, and Mozilla not only removed the add-ons from its database, but also disabled already active installations of these add-ons from all users of its browser.
The list of all Firefox extensions that were disabled can be found below:
YouTube Download & Adblocker Smarttube
Popup Blocker
Facebook Bookmark Manager
Facebook Video Downloader
YouTube MP3 Converter & Download
Simply Search
Smarttube – Extreme
Self-Destructing Cookies
Popup Blocker Pro
YouTube – Adblock
Auto-Destruct Cookies
Amazon Quick Search
YouTube Adblocker
Video Downloader
Google NoTrack
Quick AMZ
Web Security
Browser Security
Browser Privacy
Browser Safety
