Chrome Exploit Makes Video Piracy Easy

Security researchers have found an exploit in the DRM system of Google’s Chrome browser that makes it easy for pirates to rip encrypted videos straight from the web.

David Livshits from Israel’s Cyber Security Research Center at Ben-Gurion University, and Alexandra Mikityuk of Telekom Innovation Laboratories in Berlin, Germany, found the bug within Chrome’s Widevine Content Decryption Module – demonstrated in a proof-of-concept video, below – and reported it to Google on 24th May, but the issue is yet to be patched.

Wired approached Google for a statement regarding the bug. A Google spokesperson brushed it off, because the vulnerability is not exclusive to Chrome since both Firefox and Opera use Widevine.

“Chrome has long been an open-source project and developers have been able to create their own versions of the browser that, for example, may use a different CDM or include modified CDM rendering paths,” the Google spokesperson added.

It’s certainly true that the vulnerability must have existed since Google acquired Widevine back in 2010, that is no excuse for the company’s failure to patch it being formally notified of its presence.

“[A] vulnerability in the product of Google which is distributed by Google, and users and [movie] studios expect to be secure, should be highly prioritized and fixed to prevent theft of protected content,” Dudu Mimran, CTO of Cyber Security Research Center, said.