Description

Race condition in V8 in Google Chrome prior to 152.0.7977.65 allowed a remote attacker to execute arbitrary code inside the sandbox via a crafted HTML page. (Chromium security severity: Medium)

Executive Summary

Technical Details

Mitigations

References

Additional Metadata

{
  "score": "7.5",
  "pubDate": "2026-08-25T21:17:47.520Z",
  "pubdate": "2026-08-25T21:17:47.520Z",
  "executiveSummary": "A critical race condition vulnerability exists within the V8 JavaScript engine utilized by Google Chrome.\nThis vulnerability is classified as a memory safety issue that allows a remote attacker to achieve arbitrary code execution within the restricted confines of the browser sandbox.\nThe flaw affects Google Chrome versions prior to 152.0.7977.65.\nBy leveraging a specially crafted HTML page, an unauthenticated remote attacker can trigger the race condition, potentially leading to unauthorized operations or memory corruption.\nWhile the execution occurs within the sandbox, which limits immediate access to the host operating system, the capability to execute arbitrary code significantly increases the risk profile of the application.\nExploitation does not require prior authentication, relying instead on user interaction through the navigation to a malicious web page.\nGiven the nature of V8 as the core execution engine for JavaScript, this flaw poses a substantial threat to browser integrity and user data privacy.\nThe severity is rated as Medium by Chromium, emphasizing the need for timely patching to maintain the security posture of the browser environment.",
  "technicalDetails": "The vulnerability originates from a race condition within the V8 engine, the high-performance JavaScript and WebAssembly engine that serves as the foundation for Google Chrome.\nA race condition occurs when the system's substantive behavior is dependent on the sequence or timing of uncontrollable events, specifically regarding the concurrent access of shared memory resources.\nIn this context, the race condition likely manifests during the JIT (Just-In-Time) compilation or the garbage collection lifecycle of the V8 heap, where thread synchronization mechanisms fail to adequately protect shared data structures.\nThe exploitation flow begins when an attacker directs a target user to a malicious HTML page containing specifically orchestrated JavaScript code.\nThis code is designed to trigger the identified race condition by inducing high-concurrency access to vulnerable object memory locations within the V8 engine.\nBy achieving a state of memory inconsistency—often through heap spraying or manipulation of object lifecycle states—the attacker can achieve a use-after-free or type confusion scenario.\nOnce the attacker successfully subverts the engine's internal type-checking or memory management logic, they can read from or write to arbitrary memory locations within the scope of the renderer process.\nThis primitive allows the attacker to hijack control flow, such as overwriting function pointers or modifying object metadata, which is subsequently leveraged to execute arbitrary shellcode or malicious scripts.\nThe vulnerability is constrained by the Chromium sandbox, which acts as a security boundary to prevent the malicious code from directly interacting with the underlying operating system or other local files.\nHowever, successful execution within the renderer process enables the attacker to perform further actions permitted within the sandbox, such as exfiltrating data, bypassing Same-Origin Policy (SOP) protections, or serving as a pivot point for multi-stage exploit chains that attempt to escape the sandbox.\nThe vulnerability is specific to Google Chrome versions prior to 152.0.7977.65 and does not require the attacker to possess elevated privileges or perform a complex authentication handshake.\nThe root cause is a failure in thread-safe programming practices within the V8 codebase that allows a temporal overlap between object state modification and reference resolution."
}