CVE-2026-110921 in Chrome
Summary
by MITRE • 10/16/2026
Use after free in V8 in Google Chrome prior to 155.0.8059.84 allowed a remote attacker to execute arbitrary code inside the sandbox via a crafted HTML page. (Chromium security severity: High)
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 10/16/2026
The vulnerability identified as a use-after-free flaw within the V8 JavaScript engine, which powers Google Chrome prior to version 155.0.8059.84, represents a critical memory corruption issue that undermines the browser's core execution environment. This specific class of vulnerabilities arises when a program continues to use a pointer after the memory it points to has been freed or reallocated. In the context of V8, this typically occurs during garbage collection cycles where an object is deallocated but remains accessible through lingering references held by JavaScript objects or internal engine structures. When such a dangling reference is dereferenced, the application accesses invalid or reused memory locations, leading to undefined behavior that can be exploited for malicious purposes.
The operational impact of this flaw is severe due to its potential for remote code execution via a crafted HTML page. An attacker could host a specially constructed web page containing malicious JavaScript designed to trigger the specific sequence of events required to induce the use-after-free condition. By carefully manipulating object lifecycles and memory allocation patterns, an adversary can control the contents of the freed memory block before it is reused. This allows for arbitrary read or write operations within the browser process space. Although Chrome employs a multi-process architecture with sandboxing to limit the damage of such exploits, successful exploitation in this context indicates that the attacker managed to bypass these isolation mechanisms, potentially gaining code execution privileges inside the restricted sandbox environment.
From a technical perspective, this vulnerability aligns with Common Weakness Enumeration identifier CWE-416, which describes use after free errors. The attack vector is classified under MITRE ATT&CK technique T1203, specifically focusing on exploitation for client-side attacks where web browsers are targeted through malicious content delivery. The high severity rating assigned by the Chromium security team reflects the ease with which such memory corruption bugs can be leveraged to achieve arbitrary code execution, especially when combined with other techniques like heap spraying or type confusion to stabilize the exploit and bypass modern mitigation technologies such as ASLR and DEP.
Mitigation for this vulnerability requires immediate action on two fronts: user-side remediation and developer-level prevention. Users must update Google Chrome to version 155.0.8059.84 or later, which contains patches that enforce stricter memory management protocols within V8, ensuring that references are properly nullified upon deallocation and preventing access to freed memory regions. For developers contributing to the Chromium project or similar engines, rigorous code review processes focusing on object lifetime management and reference counting mechanisms are essential. Implementing static analysis tools capable of detecting dangling pointer usage and employing dynamic testing methods like AddressSanitizer can help identify these issues during development before they reach production releases.