What is the CVSS score of CVE-2026-18002?

CVE-2026-18002 has a contested CVSS base score of 9.6 from a third party (e.g. CISA-ADP), while the vendor rates it Critical. vuln.today uses the vendor rating as authoritative.

Which versions of Google Chrome are affected by CVE-2026-18002?

Google Chrome versions before 151.0.7922.72 contain a privilege escalation flaw that allows attackers who have compromised a user's browser to gain complete system access.. A patch is available.

How to fix or mitigate CVE-2026-18002?

Within 24 hours, audit Chrome deployment across the organization to identify instances running versions prior to 151.0.7922.72 and document exposure scope. Within 7 days, initiate staged rollout of Chrome 151.0.7922.72 or later, prioritizing endpoints handling sensitive workflows or untrusted content. Complete full deployment across all endpoints within 30 days and confirm through asset inventory that no pre-151.0.7922.72 instances remain in active use.

Google Chrome CVE-2026-18002

EUVD-2026-50928 CRITICAL

Improper Input Validation (CWE-20)

2026-07-30 Chrome

GHSA-2wqv-r9pg-89qm

Information Disclosure Google

Critical

Disputed · 9.6 Vendor: Chrome

Severity by source

Sources disagree (Low–Critical)

Vendor (Chrome) PRIMARY

9.6 CRITICAL

AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H

vuln.today AI

8.3 HIGH

Sandbox escape requires a pre-existing renderer compromise plus a crafted page and user interaction, so AC:H and UI:R; escaping the sandbox is a scope change (S:C) with full host impact.

3.1 AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:R/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H

4.0 AV:N/AC:H/AT:N/PR:N/UI:P/VC:H/VI:H/VA:H/SC:H/SI:H/SA:H

SUSE

CRITICAL

qualitative

Red Hat

5.0 LOW

qualitative

vuln.today treats the vendor’s rating as authoritative. A higher third-party CVSS (e.g. CISA-ADP) is shown for transparency but does not drive the headline severity.

CVSS VectorVendor: Chrome

Attack Vector

Network

Attack Complexity

Low

Privileges Required

None

User Interaction

Required

Scope

Changed

Confidentiality

High

Integrity

High

Availability

High

Lifecycle Timeline

Analysis Generated

Jul 30, 2026 - 16:33 vuln.today

Patch available

Jul 30, 2026 - 02:02 EUVD

CVE Published

Jul 30, 2026 - 00:26 cve.org

UNKNOWN (no severity yet)

CVE Published

Jul 30, 2026 - 00:26 cve.org

CRITICAL 9.6

DescriptionCVE.org

Insufficient validation of untrusted input in Google Lens in Google Chrome prior to 151.0.7922.72 allowed a remote attacker who had compromised the renderer process to potentially perform a sandbox escape via a crafted HTML page. (Chromium security severity: Low)

AnalysisAI

Sandbox escape in Google Chrome's Google Lens component (versions prior to 151.0.7922.72) lets an attacker who has already compromised the renderer process break out of the browser sandbox using a crafted HTML page. The flaw is a second-stage privilege boundary bypass rather than an initial-access bug: it requires a pre-existing renderer compromise to reach, and Google's own Chromium team rated its security severity as Low despite the 9.6 CVSS. No public exploit identified at time of analysis, and EPSS is very low at 0.16% (6th percentile).

Technical ContextAI

The affected technology is the Google Lens feature integrated into the Chromium/Chrome browser, which runs across the browser's multi-process sandbox architecture. Chrome isolates untrusted web content in low-privilege renderer processes; a sandbox escape crosses that trust boundary to reach the higher-privileged browser process and, effectively, the host. The root cause is CWE-20 (Improper Input Validation): Google Lens insufficiently validates untrusted input passed to it, allowing a malicious/compromised renderer to manipulate that path to break isolation. The CPE cpe:2.3:a:google:chrome:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:* confirms the affected product is the Chrome application itself.

RemediationAI

Vendor-released patch: update Google Chrome to 151.0.7922.72 or later via the desktop Stable channel (restart the browser to apply, since Chrome stages updates but only activates them on relaunch); see https://chromereleases.googleblog.com/2026/07/stable-channel-update-for-desktop_0887107924.html. In managed fleets, push the update through your enterprise update policy or endpoint management and verify the running version rather than the installed version. As a compensating control until the update is applied, prioritize patching the renderer-level bugs this escape would be chained to (keeping Chrome fully current closes both), and enforce Chrome's site isolation and sandbox settings so a renderer compromise remains harder to achieve; there is no documented feature-level toggle to disable only Google Lens as a mitigation, so the practical control is simply completing the browser update.