Is Secure Shield by Secure Shell safe?
Secure Shield by Secure Shell redirects Google and Bing searches to Secure Shield Search with the original query.
Secure Shield by Secure Shell uses browser redirect rules to replace some Google and Bing search result navigations with Secure Shield Search URLs. The redirected URL includes the original search query, so that query is sent to Secure Shield Search when the rule matches.
Who publishes itAnn Pace - no other listings under this identity
Ann Pace - no other listings under this identity
What this publisher told the store about itself, and the other listings that told it the same thing.
AI-generated. Findings may contain errors. Those marked Verified have been manually reviewed.
Publishers can request a review.
Findings
Secure Shield redirects your Google and Bing searches to its own search engine
When you search on Google or Bing, the extension intercepts the page load and sends you to secureshieldsearch.com instead, carrying your search terms with it.
- Severity
- Medium unwanted
- Type
- Unexpected
- CWE
- CWE-359
- Source
- Dynamic sandbox
You navigate to a Google or Bing search results page.
For example https://www.google.com/search?q=running+shoes&sourceid=chrome.
The extension redirects the page before it loads, sending you to secureshieldsearch.com with the same query.
Our dynamic analysis captured this with a unique canary search term to confirm the redirect and the exact query value reaching the new destination.
200 OK. Observed during dynamic analysis: after navigating to a Google search URL carrying a planted marker query, that same query value arrived at secureshieldsearch.com's q parameter, confirming the search text leaves the browser and reaches this destination.
200 OK, reached via a 307 then 302 redirect chain from the Bing search URL, with the same planted marker query value preserved in q.
The redirect rules shipped in rules.json
These are unminified static rules loaded via the manifest's declarative_net_request key; no deobfuscation was required. The capture group holding your query text (group 2) is copied directly from the original Google/Bing URL into the redirect target's q parameter.- Your search termsrunning shoes
The exact text you typed into Google or Bing search.
- Which search engine you usedosp=google
A tag (osp=google or osp=bing) recording which engine originated the redirected search.
- www.secureshieldsearch.com
Receives every redirected Google/Bing search query and serves the replacement results page; also set as the browser's default search provider.
What it can do
Permissions this extension asks for, as declared in version 3.0.0. Asking for a permission is not a finding on its own - it is what the extension can do if it chooses to. The current listed version is 3.0.2, which we have not unpacked yet.
Read and change your data on every site you visit
<all_urls>
Add items to the right-click menu
contextMenus
Block and redirect the requests your browser makes
declarativeNetRequest
Store data in your browser
storage
Where it sends data
Destinations our analysis observed Secure Shield by Secure Shell contacting. Sending data somewhere is not a finding on its own - an extension that syncs your settings has to talk to its own server - but it is where your data can go, and who else it goes to.
- www.secureshieldsearch.com
Secure Shield by Secure Shell sends data to www.secureshieldsearch.com. No other extension we have analysed sends data here.