CVE-2026-5281
Google Dawn Use-After-Free Vulnerability
Does this matter?
Known to be exploited in the wild (CISA KEV, CISA remediation deadline 15 April 2026). Treat as an emergency change: patch or isolate now, then hunt for prior compromise.
Description
Use after free in Dawn in Google Chrome prior to 146.0.7680.178 allowed a remote attacker who had compromised the renderer process to execute arbitrary code via a crafted HTML page. (Chromium security severity: High)
- CVSS 3.1
- 8.8 HIGHCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
- EPSS
- 13.51% probability · 96th percentile
- Public exploits
- None in Exploit-DB
- CISA KEV
- Listed 1 April 2026 · due 15 April 2026
- Weakness
- CWE-416
- Affected
- google/chrome
- Source
- chrome-cve-admin@google.com
EPSS moved from 0.7% on 24 September 2026 to 13.5% on 26 October 2026. The dashed line is the ten per cent mark our analysts treat as “patch before the next change window”.
CISA notes
Apply mitigations per vendor instructions, follow applicable BOD 22-01 guidance for cloud services, or discontinue use of the product if mitigations are unavailable. This vulnerability affects an open-source component, third-party library, protocol, or proprietary implementation that could be used by different products. For more information, please see: https://chromereleases.googleblog.com/2026/03/stable-channel-update-for-desktop_31.html ; https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-5281
References
- https://chromereleases.googleblog.com/2026/03/stable-channel-update-for-desktop_31.htmlVendor Advisory
- https://issues.chromium.org/issues/491518608Issue Tracking, Permissions Required
- https://www.cisa.gov/known-exploited-vulnerabilities-catalog?field_cve=CVE-2026-5281US Government Resource
Source: NVD record, EPSS from FIRST.org, KEV from CISA, exploits from Exploit-DB. Refreshed daily. Download this record as JSON.