Browser extensions can be super helpful when it comes to improving productivity and streamlining workflows. They can even customize your digital experiences. But they also present a serious security risk that many teams underestimate. Some extensions can request overly broad permissions. Others might inject malicious scripts or leak sensitive company data without you realizing it. For this reason, you’ll want to audit your browser extensions, decide what to allow, and put a smart policy into place. Here are the steps to do just that:
1. Start with an Inventory of Installed Extensions
Before you can do anything else, you have to know what you’re working with. Why? You can’t manage what you can’t see. Your team may have added extensions over the course of years and completely forgotten they exist. This is especially true in companies with bring-your-own-device policies. Browser management may be more lax in the interest of trust and autonomy. But you don’t realize what you may be permitting by default.
Start your inventory by running a discovery process across all of your managed browsers. It’s easy to do this if you’re using Chrome Enterprise, Microsoft Edge for Business, or Firefox Enterprise. Simply push a script or policy to extract a list of installed extensions. Consider utilizing tools like Endpoint Manager or Jamf to help you get all the data you need at scale. If your company allows unmanaged devices, have your employees send in screenshots or exports as part of a compliance check.
2. Evaluate Each Extension’s Risk and Purpose
Now that you know what you have, you can start to categorize your extensions by the function they serve. These could include, for example:
- Password manager
- Grammar checker
- Ad blocker
- CRM plugin
- Automated sales enablement
Then, evaluate each of those categories based on the principle of least privilege. You want to know what permissions each extension requires and if those permissions are justified by the function of the extension.
Any extensions that request access to “read and change all your data on your websites you visit” should immediately raise red flags. Make it a priority to review any extensions that access user credentials, manipulate web traffic, or run in the background. Then, check the publisher, reviews, and security history of each extension. Reputable vendors will maintain secure code, so choose for transparency reports or open-source options whenever you can.
3. Define Approval Categories and Create a Policy Template
Once you’ve evaluated all of your extensions, sort them into three buckets:
- Approved
- Restricted
- Blocked
Your approved extensions are those that will serve as essential tools with verified publishers. They should also have reasonable permission. Restricted extensions are those you’ll allow only on a case-by-case basis. Blocked extensions are the ones you ban entirely at a companywide level because of the danger they pose to your security.
Now, you can build a simple browser extension policy. It should include:
- A list of pre-approved extensions
- Criteria for approval
- A request process for new tools
- A review cycle (quarterly or semi-annually)
- Enforcement protocols for violations
You must communicate your policy clearly to all of your teams. Make sure to speak directly with developers, sales teams, and marketing teams as they tend to experiment most with browser tools.
4. Set Hard Limits and Enforce via Browser Management Tools
No matter how popular they are, some browser extensions are just too risky to engage with. These include VPNs, clipboard managers, coupon tools, and extensions that track user behavior. Also, watch out for tools that modify your website traffic. Any extension or tool like these should fall under your hard limits, or banned list, and be blocked by default. You can always approve of a reasonable tool later if your security team reviews it and finds it benign.
To enforce your company’s hard limits, make sure to use browser settings to whitelist or blacklist extensions based on their IDs. Chrome, Edge, and Firefox all support these rules thanks to group policies or JSON configurations. You’ll also want to enable a centralized website blocker that can prevent known malicious extension domains from phoning home. A great blocker will catch them even if they slip through your policy net. It’s an extra layer of protection worth adding.
5. Review Regularly and Train Employees
Finally, no matter how amazing and innovative your settings are, if your employees are not well-trained and well-informed, you’ll likely still suffer security breaches in this arena. That’s because the number one greatest security risk is human error. After all, vendors change, security practices degrade, and employees adopt new tools all the time. So make sure to set a regular schedule for extension audits and talk to your team about what’s happening.
You can educate your employees on how to evaluate themselves by teaching them how to:
- Check for excessive permissions
- Verify developers
- Read reviews and updated logs
- Avoid sideloading extensions from unofficial sources
When you make security awareness a natural part of your onboarding and continuous training programs, you create an informed team. Knowledge is indeed power in this situation, and informed employees are less likely to install risky tools.
Take Power Back from Browser Extensions
Yes. Browser extensions are deceptively powerful as they sit between users and the internet. This makes them a prime target for attackers and prone to accidental data leaks. But you can take back this power by taking a structured approach to auditing, approving, and managing your browser extensions. You’ll reduce your exposure without inhibiting productivity. And all you really need is a clear policy, hard limits enforcement, and a combination of browser controls and DNS-based filtering. Start your audit today.
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