Users of Comodo Internet Security are being warned against using the Chromodo web browser that the security suite installs on users systems. Tavis Ormandy, a security researcher with Google's Project Zero, has uncovered that the Chromodo browser disables its same-origin policy safeguards.


Same-origin policy is a safeguard built into Chrome - which Chromodo is based on; the same-origin policy ensures that scripts can only access data in another script if they both originate from the same site. Without this safeguard enabled, bad guys can get access to your private data.


The issue, which is documented on Google Code, is now reported as fixed and was subsequently made public. However, Ormandy notes that Comodo has only deployed a trivial fix which prevents the exploit that was shown to the security firm. Tavis notes that despite the fix, it is still rather trivial to bypass, and Comodo isn't being too responsive, which may delay the release of an actual solution.


When Comodo Internet Security is installed, Chromodo is automatically made the default browser. In addition, all of your Chrome data - including settings, cookies, and bookmarks - are imported into Chromodo. To top everything off, Ormandy says that Comodo Internet Security hijacks DNS settings.


Usually, the convenience Chromodo provides by porting all the information over from Chrome wouldn't matter so much, but because it can't provide basic security it could potentially become a major headache for users.


The best course of action for users of Comodo Internet Security is to completely remove the software from their systems. For those of you running the latest versions of Windows, your system comes with Windows Defender built in which acts as a decent repellent of malware, at no charge.


Source: Google Code