By Thomas Claburn
Publication Date: 2025-12-16 21:03:00
Ad blockers and VPNs are designed to protect your privacy, but four popular browser extensions do just the opposite. According to research by Koi Security, these malicious plugins captured the text of chatbot conversations from more than 8 million people and sent it back to developers.
The four seemingly helpful extensions are Urban VPN Proxy, 1ClickVPN Proxy, Urban Browser Guard and Urban Ad Blocker. They are distributed through the Chrome Web Store and Microsoft Edge add-ons, but contain code designed to capture and transmit browser-based interactions using popular AI tools.
“Urban VPN Proxy targets conversations across ten AI platforms,” Koi co-founder and CTO Idan Dardikman said in a blog post published Monday.
The research firm said target platforms include ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Microsoft Copilot, Perplexity, DeepSeek, Grok and Meta AI.
