Google has pushed out an update for its Chrome browser that lances two vulnerabilities, one of which it defines as critical.

The critical flaw involves a failure to properly validate input from a renderer (tab) process. Successful exploitation of the flaw might allow the injection of hostile code onto vulnerable systems, hence the critical tag.

The second "high risk" flaw involves problems in calculating image size. The security bug creates a means for hackers to crash vulnerable systems, for example after tricking users into visiting malicious constructed websites.

Both flaws are explained in more depth in an advisory by Google here: http://googlechromereleases.blogspot.com/2009/05/stable-update-security-fix.html
It's the second time in two weeks that Google has updated its browser software in response to a security problem. A previous update - issued on 23 April - addressed an unrelated lower-risk security bug.

Google Chrome contains a background updating function so the browser will update itself to the latest version, Chrome 1.0.154.64, unbeknownst to most users.

(The Register)