Description

Use after free in Browser in Google Chrome prior to 152.0.7977.75 allowed a remote attacker who had compromised the renderer process to execute arbitrary code outside the sandbox via a crafted HTML page. (Chromium security severity: High)

Executive Summary

Technical Details

Mitigations

References

Additional Metadata

{
  "score": "8.3",
  "pubDate": "2026-09-02T00:18:28.770Z",
  "pubdate": "2026-09-02T00:18:28.770Z",
  "executiveSummary": "This vulnerability is a Use-After-Free (UAF) memory corruption flaw identified in Google Chrome prior to version 152.0.7977.75. The flaw exists within the browser's rendering engine, which is responsible for parsing and displaying web content.\nA remote attacker who has successfully compromised the renderer process can exploit this vulnerability by enticing a user to visit a specially crafted HTML page. Successful exploitation allows the attacker to break out of the browser's security sandbox, leading to arbitrary code execution on the underlying host system.\nGiven that the renderer process is the primary target for web-based attacks, this vulnerability poses a high risk to user security. The ability to escape the sandbox environment represents a critical escalation of privileges, enabling potential full system compromise, data exfiltration, or the installation of persistent malicious software.\nThis vulnerability highlights the ongoing challenge of memory management within complex C++ based rendering engines, where lifetime management of objects is critical for maintaining system integrity.",
  "technicalDetails": "The core of this vulnerability resides in the memory management logic of the Google Chrome rendering engine. A Use-After-Free (UAF) condition occurs when the application continues to use a pointer to a memory address after that memory has been deallocated or freed. In the context of the renderer process, this typically occurs when a DOM element or an internal browser object is destroyed, but a reference to that object is incorrectly retained in a controller or callback function.\nThe exploitation flow begins when an attacker lures a user to a malicious webpage containing crafted HTML/JavaScript. When the browser renders this page, the attacker triggers a specific sequence of operations designed to influence the heap layout and provoke the vulnerable code path. The attacker's goal is to force the engine to free a specific memory object while keeping a 'dangling pointer' active in the application state.\nBy performing heap grooming or heap spraying, the attacker attempts to allocate new, attacker-controlled data at the same memory location previously occupied by the freed object. When the browser later dereferences the stale pointer, it inadvertently interacts with the attacker's controlled data rather than the original object. This allows the attacker to manipulate internal browser structures, function pointers, or virtual method tables (vtables).\nOnce the attacker successfully hijacks the execution flow—often by overwriting a vtable pointer—they can redirect program control to a secondary payload (shellcode or a Return-Oriented Programming (ROP) chain). Because this occurs within the renderer process, which is restricted by a sandbox, the final stage of the exploit involves leveraging this arbitrary code execution to exploit secondary vulnerabilities or misconfigurations in the sandbox implementation itself. This allows the attacker to bypass isolation boundaries and execute arbitrary code with the privileges of the logged-in user or potentially at a higher system integrity level, depending on the sandbox escape method employed.\nThe vulnerability affects Google Chrome versions prior to 152.0.7977.75. It requires no specific user authentication beyond visiting the malicious content, and it is fully network-exploitable, provided the attacker can host the malicious HTML page."
}