How to oversee Chrome automatic browser updates

The aim of all automated updating is to ensure more secure surfing and to reduce the risk of malicious software taking control of the application and embedding itself on a computer. Transferring the duty for updates, especially security updates, away from the user has been a prevalent concept in software development for many years for a valid reason – it leads to a larger amount of devices being kept up-to-date. (The 2017 WannaCry incidents vividly demonstrated the disparities between promptly patched and unpatched Windows systems.)

Attempting to interfere with automatic updates might be ineffective since Chrome’s updating process cannot be permanently disabled unless integrated with the business network of Active Directory. “In order to prevent exploitation of this directive, in case a device is not linked to an Active Directory domain, and if this directive is set to 0 or to a value exceeding 77 hours, this directive will not be followed and changed back to 77 hours after August 2014,” states a Chrome support document, mentioning a group policy enabling corporate IT personnel to deactivate the functionality.

Simply put, this implies that efforts to deactivate auto updates, for instance, by configuring a Windows Registry key – a core method in many of the available techniques on the internet – will prove unsuccessful as the interval between update checks reverts to 77 hours, approximately equal to 3.2 days.

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AndyC

Andy Curtis is an award-winning security consultant, researcher and public speaker. He has been working in the computer security industry since the early 1990s, having been employed by state and federal government, leading healthcare and banking providers across three continents. He has given talks about computer security for some of the world’s largest companies, worked with law enforcement agencies on investigations into hacking groups, and is a regular voice on TV and radio explaining IT security threats.

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