CVE-2026-17985 in Chrome
Summary
by MITRE • 07/30/2026
Insufficient policy enforcement in Speech in Google Chrome prior to 151.0.7922.72 allowed a remote attacker to bypass site isolation via a crafted HTML page. (Chromium security severity: Low)
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 07/30/2026
This vulnerability represents a critical flaw in google chrome's site isolation mechanisms that could allow remote attackers to bypass security protections through carefully crafted html content. The issue stems from insufficient policy enforcement within the speech recognition api implementation, specifically affecting versions prior to 151.0.7922.72. The vulnerability falls under the broader category of privilege escalation and sandbox escape scenarios where malicious actors could potentially access data from other origins that should be isolated. This type of weakness is particularly concerning as it undermines fundamental web security principles that separate different websites to prevent cross-site attacks.
The technical flaw manifests when chrome processes speech recognition elements within html pages, where the browser fails to properly validate or enforce origin restrictions on speech data processing. Attackers can craft malicious web pages containing specific speech recognition elements that exploit this gap in policy enforcement. The vulnerability allows for potential information disclosure and could enable attackers to gather sensitive data from other websites running in separate processes or contexts. This represents a failure in chrome's content security policies and demonstrates inadequate boundary checking between different browsing contexts.
The operational impact of this vulnerability extends beyond simple data theft, as it could enable more sophisticated attacks including cross-site scripting attempts, session hijacking, or even credential harvesting from other origins. The low chromium security severity rating does not diminish the potential for abuse in real-world scenarios where attackers might combine this weakness with other vulnerabilities to create more powerful attack vectors. Organizations using chrome versions prior to 151.0.7922.72 face significant risk as this vulnerability could be exploited in targeted attacks against users or systems.
From a cybersecurity perspective, this vulnerability aligns with several attack patterns documented in the mitre att&ck framework, particularly those related to privilege escalation and sandbox escapes. The weakness demonstrates poor input validation and insufficient access control mechanisms that are commonly addressed through proper security architecture principles. Organizations should consider this vulnerability as part of their broader threat modeling efforts, especially when evaluating browser-based attack surfaces. Remediation requires immediate patching of affected chrome versions, though security teams should also implement additional monitoring for suspicious speech recognition api usage patterns.
The vulnerability highlights gaps in chromium's site isolation implementation and underscores the complexity of securing modern web browsers. It demonstrates how seemingly isolated components like speech recognition can become attack vectors when proper policy enforcement mechanisms are absent. This type of issue typically relates to cwe 284 access control flaws, where insufficient controls allow unauthorized access to resources or information. Security professionals should ensure that all browser updates are applied promptly and consider implementing additional network monitoring to detect unusual speech api activity that might indicate exploitation attempts.