Severity by source
Sources disagree (Low–High)AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
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 VectorNVD
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
Lifecycle Timeline
3DescriptionCVE.org
Insufficient validation of untrusted input in Updater in Google Chrome on Mac prior to 148.0.7778.96 allowed a local attacker to perform OS-level privilege escalation via a malicious file. (Chromium security severity: Low)
AnalysisAI
Local privilege escalation in Google Chrome's macOS Updater component allows attackers to gain OS-level administrative privileges through malicious files. The flaw affects Chrome versions prior to 148.0.7778.96 on macOS and requires user interaction to exploit. Google has released Chrome 148.0.7778.96 to address this vulnerability. Despite the 7.8 CVSS score, Google rates this as Low severity, reflecting the local attack vector and user interaction requirement that significantly constrain real-world exploitation scenarios.
Technical ContextAI
This vulnerability (CWE-20: Improper Input Validation) resides in Chrome's Updater component, which manages browser updates on macOS. The Updater runs with elevated privileges to install system-wide updates, making it an attractive privilege escalation target. The insufficient validation of untrusted input means the Updater fails to properly sanitize or verify file inputs before processing them with elevated permissions. When a malicious file is processed, the attacker can leverage the Updater's privileged context to execute code at the OS level, breaking out of Chrome's sandbox and the user's permission boundaries. This type of vulnerability typically involves path traversal, symlink manipulation, or unsafe file operations in privileged code paths. The CPE identifier cpe:2.3:a:google:chrome:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:* confirms this affects the Chrome application specifically on macOS platforms.
RemediationAI
Update Google Chrome to version 148.0.7778.96 or later, which contains the vendor-supplied fix for this privilege escalation vulnerability. Chrome's built-in auto-update mechanism will deploy this patch automatically for most users within 24-48 hours of release. Enterprise administrators using managed Chrome deployments should verify that update policies allow Chrome 148.x and confirm successful deployment via chrome://settings/help or central management consoles. Refer to the official stable channel update at chromereleases.googleblog.com/2026/05/stable-channel-update-for-desktop.html for release notes and the Chromium bug tracker issue 487960705 for technical context. No workarounds are documented because the vulnerability requires both local access and user interaction, making compensating controls impractical. Organizations concerned about zero-day exposure windows should consider blocking execution of unknown files from untrusted sources via macOS Gatekeeper policies, though this may impact legitimate workflows and does not specifically mitigate this Updater vulnerability.
Use-after-free vulnerability in the DisplayObject class in the ActionScript 3 (AS3) implementation in Adobe Flash Player
V8 in Google Chrome prior to 54.0.2840.90 for Linux, and 54.0.2840.85 for Android, and 54.0.2840.87 for Windows and Mac
Type confusion in V8 in Google Chrome prior to 59.0.3071.86 for Linux, Windows, and Mac, and 59.0.3071.92 for Android, a
The Array.prototype.concat implementation in builtins.cc in Google V8, as used in Google Chrome before 49.0.2623.108, do
Mozilla Firefox before 18.0, Firefox ESR 10.x before 10.0.12 and 17.x before 17.0.2, Thunderbird before 17.0.2, Thunderb
Incorrect handling of complex species in V8 in Google Chrome prior to 57.0.2987.98 for Linux, Windows, and Mac and 57.0.
The Chrome Object Wrapper (COW) implementation in Mozilla Firefox before 16.0, Firefox ESR 10.x before 10.0.8, Thunderbi
An issue was discovered in the Cisco WebEx Extension before 1.0.7 on Google Chrome, the ActiveTouch General Plugin Conta
The XrayWrapper implementation in Mozilla Firefox before 35.0 and SeaMonkey before 2.32 does not properly interact with
The Chrome Object Wrapper (COW) implementation in Mozilla Firefox before 18.0, Firefox ESR 17.x before 17.0.2, Thunderbi
The Web IDL implementation in Mozilla Firefox before 28.0, Firefox ESR 24.x before 24.4, Thunderbird before 24.4, and Se
Use-after-free vulnerability in the BitmapData class in the ActionScript 3 (AS3) implementation in Adobe Flash Player 13
Same weakness CWE-20 – Improper Input Validation
View allSame technique Privilege Escalation
View allVendor StatusVendor
SUSE
Severity: HighShare
External POC / Exploit Code
Leaving vuln.today
EUVD-2026-28097