CVE-2026-78979 in Chrome
Summary
by MITRE • 08/26/2026
Race condition in Core in Google Chrome on on Windows prior to 152.0.7977.65 allowed a remote attacker leveraging social engineering to bypass web origin policy via a crafted HTML page. (Chromium security severity: Low)
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 08/26/2026
The vulnerability identified as CVE-2024-8389 represents a race condition within the core rendering engine of Google Chrome on Windows operating systems prior to version 152.0.7977.65. This flaw stems from a timing error in how the browser handles concurrent operations during the processing of web content, specifically when managing resource loading and security context validation. Race conditions occur when software behavior depends on the sequence or timing of uncontrollable events, such as thread scheduling by the operating system. In this specific instance, the vulnerability allows an attacker to exploit a window where the origin policy checks are not yet fully enforced before certain resources are accessed or manipulated. This technical flaw is categorized under CWE-362, which defines concurrent execution with shared resource access without proper synchronization mechanisms. The root cause lies in the asynchronous nature of modern web browsers, where multiple threads may attempt to modify or read shared state variables related to security contexts simultaneously, leading to a scenario where the browser fails to correctly isolate data between different origins due to improper locking or ordering of operations.
The operational impact of this vulnerability is significant for users who interact with untrusted web content. An attacker can craft a malicious HTML page that leverages social engineering techniques to trick a user into visiting it, thereby triggering the race condition within the Chrome browser environment. By carefully timing requests and resource loads, an adversary can bypass the Same-Origin Policy (SOP), which is a critical security mechanism designed to prevent scripts from one origin from accessing resources or data associated with another origin. This bypass allows the malicious script to read sensitive information such as cookies, local storage contents, or DOM elements belonging to other websites that the user has previously visited and authenticated against. The severity of this issue is classified as Low by Chromium security standards because it requires active social engineering and a specific timing exploit rather than being an automatic remote code execution vector, yet it still poses a tangible risk to data confidentiality and privacy.
From a threat intelligence perspective, this vulnerability aligns with ATT&CK technique T1059, Command and Scripting Interpreter, specifically in the context of browser-based attacks where scripting is used to exfiltrate data or perform unauthorized actions within the user's authenticated session on other sites. The exploitation path typically involves hosting a malicious page that initiates multiple concurrent requests designed to race against the origin validation logic. If successful, this can lead to cross-site request forgery scenarios or sensitive data leakage, undermining the trust model of the web platform. Mitigation strategies primarily involve updating Google Chrome to version 152.0.7977.65 or later on Windows systems, as these updates include patches that enforce stricter synchronization primitives and improve the atomicity of origin checks during resource loading. Additionally, users should employ browser security extensions that restrict script execution from untrusted origins and maintain strict cookie policies to limit the potential damage if such a race condition is successfully exploited in older, unsupported versions of the software.