Google issues emergency Chrome web browser security update.
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I’ve said it before, and I’m going to say it again: check your Google Chrome browser update status and restart the application immediately. Today. Right now. Hot on the heels of a Chrome 142 security update that fixed five vulnerabilities, just a few days ago, comes news of an ‘emergency’ update that addresses just the one: CVE-2025-13042. Impacting all users of the Chrome web browser across Android, Linux, Mac, and Windows platforms, it was deemed critical enough not to wait for a bunch of others to arrive this time. Here’s what you need to know and do.
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I have a rule of thumb that goes: never ignore a warning from the Google security teams, even if you are not a huge Google fan whether that warning concerns dangerous VPN applications, scam and fraud attacks that target Gmail users, or, as in this case, a high-rated security vulnerability impacting almost all the 3.5 billion users of its Chrome web browser.
As confirmed by Srinivas Sista, part of the Google Chrome team, the browser has another security vulnerability that needs to be dealt with as a matter of some urgency, in the form of CVE-2025-13042, an “inappropriate implementation in V8.” That’s the JavaScript rendering engine used by Chrome, which was reported a little over a week ago and enables the exploitation through the use of malicious JavaScript code. As for the technical details of the vulnerability itself, Google does not release these until the majority of users have had the opportunity to update and restart their browsers. Take that as a big hint to get moving folks. What I can tell you is that an inappropriate implementation just refers to a coding or configuration error that can allow an attacker to exploit it in some way. So, it could be pretty much anything at this stage.
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Update Google Chrome And Restart Your Browser Now
The good news, apart from the fact that the vulnerability has been fixed, is that the security updates are largely automated. However, note that Google has said these will be rolling out in the coming days and weeks, which is not a good amount of time to be hanging around when a vulnerability such as CVE-2025-13042 has been confirmed. That said, then, I would recommend all users to kickstart the security update process even if your browser isn’t yet showing the restart-to-u