Chrome OS is a relatively secure OS, which is one major reason why more businesses are opting for laptops running it. However, a new bug has been spotted that could reveal location history to anyone who has physical access to your Chromebook.
This was spotted by the Committee on Liberatory Information Technology (via The Verge), which claims Google has known about this bug for years. It relates to how Chromebooks treat Wi-Fi logs, records of which networks they have connected to.
The way it is right now, these logs can be accessed even in the Guest mode since they're kept in unprotected memory. While someone who isn't adept with technology may not be able to make much sense of it, an informed third-party with physical access to the Chromebook could easily decipher the logs to reveal location history for up to seven days.
For what it's worth, Google has acknowledged this issue but hasn't given word on when it'll be patched. In the meantime, you can protect yourself by completely disabling Guest Mode. Here's how to do that:
- Make sure you're using the owner account.
- At the bottom right, click on the time.
- Select Settings
- In the "People" section, select "Manage other people"
- Turn off "Enable Guest browsing"
We'll update the story if Google rolls out an update that properly squashes this bug.