Researchers Find Claude for Chrome Flaws That Could Let Malicious Extensions Trigger Sensitive Google Tasks

Researchers at Manifold Security have disclosed two security weaknesses in Anthropic’s Claude for Chrome extension that could allow another browser extension with access to the Claude website to trigger predefined AI-powered actions involving a user’s Gmail, Google Docs and Google Calendar.

According to the researchers, the issues remain present in version 1.0.80 of the extension despite earlier mitigations introduced after the disclosure of the “ClaudeBleed” vulnerability. While Anthropic restricted how external webpages can communicate with the extension, Manifold says the underlying trust boundary that determines whether a user intentionally initiated an action has not been fully addressed.

The findings do not indicate that arbitrary websites can directly read a user’s email or documents. Instead, the attack requires another browser extension that already has permission to execute scripts on the claude.ai domain. If such an extension is malicious or becomes compromised, it could abuse Claude’s existing capabilities to initiate AI tasks that access a user’s connected Google services.

Forged clicks can initiate predefined Claude actions

Following the earlier ClaudeBleed disclosure, Anthropic replaced unrestricted prompt handling with a fixed allowlist of predefined onboarding tasks. Rather than allowing external callers to submit arbitrary prompts, the extension now recognizes only nine task identifiers embedded within its code.

Among these are demonstration workflows for third-party services such as DoorDash, Salesforce and Zillow, along with tasks that interact with Gmail, Google Docs and Google Calendar. This design significantly narrows the attack surface because outside scripts can no longer provide custom instructions for Claude to execute.

However, Manifold Security found that the mechanism responsible for launching these tasks can still be manipulated.

The researchers explain that a content script running within the extension monitors the Claude webpage for clicks on a specific onboarding element. When a click occurs, the script reads the associated task identifier and forwards it to the extension, which opens Claude’s side panel with the corresponding workflow prepared.

The problem lies in how those clicks are validated. Instead of confirming that the event originated from an actual user interaction, the extension accepts any matching click event, including one generated programmatically by JavaScript.

Modern browsers provide an “event.isTrusted” property that distinguishes genuine user actions from synthetic events created by scripts. According to Manifold, the extension does not verify this property before processing the request.

As a result, another extension capable of interacting with the Claude webpage can dynamically create the required element, assign one of the approved task identifiers and dispatch an artificial click event. Because the extension treats the event as legitimate, Claude opens the selected workflow as though the user had manually initiated it.

The researchers demonstrated this behavior using a short proof-of-concept script executed within the Claude page, showing that synthetic click events marked as untrusted were still accepted by the extension.

Approval settings determine the level of risk

Whether the forged action progresses beyond this point depends largely on how the extension has been configured.

For users operating under Claude’s default “Ask before acting” setting, the extension still pres

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