152 Chrome Wallpaper Extensions with 105K Installs Linked to Adware and Fake Traffic

Cybersecurity researchers identified a cluster of 152 Chrome extensions (spread across 38 publisher accounts and three brand backends) that distribute a potentially unwanted program and perform ad-fraud by collecting IP/ISP/click/referrer data and faking Google organic search/referral traffic via hard-coded install/uninstall URLs; some extensions contain dormant code to enumerate and delete IndexedDB databases. The extensions have ~105,000 installs and appear to support a financially motivated adware/traffic-attribution-fraud affiliate operation with possible ties to Turkey.