CVE-2022-36077 — electron
HIGHCVE-2022-36077 is a high-severity (CVSS 7.2) Information Exposure vulnerability in electron. A fix is available for electron — see the affected versions and patch details below.
Electron subject to Exfiltration of hashed SMB credentials on Windows via file:// redirect
Exploitation Status
No confirmed exploitation observed yet
- CISA assesses this as automatable — exploitation doesn’t require manual, per-target effort, which raises the odds of mass scanning and opportunistic attacks.
- CISA’s own triage has not observed active exploitation or public proof-of-concept code for this CVE as of its last assessment.
Exploitation and automatability from CISA’s SSVC triage for CVE-2022-36077.
EPSS Exploitation Probability
EPSS (Exploit Prediction Scoring System) is a daily probability model maintained by FIRST.org. It estimates the likelihood a CVE will be exploited in production environments within the next 30 days, derived from real-world threat intelligence signals.
How urgent is this, really
CVE-2022-36077 plotted by exploitation likelihood (EPSS) against impact (CVSS). The shaded corner — EPSS 50%+ and CVSS 7.0+ — is where this CVE doesn't sit, though severity or exploitability alone can still warrant action.
Where this sits among everything scored
Of 378,156 CVEs with a current EPSS score, this one falls in the < 10% band (highlighted). Real counts from FIRST.org, not a sample — log-scaled since the landscape is heavily right-skewed.
Real-World Exposure
How broadly this vulnerability is actually deployed: weekly install volume shows current usage, and reverse-dependency count shows how many other packages break if it stays unpatched.
electronnpmDescription
Impact
When following a redirect, Electron delays a check for redirecting to file:// URLs from other schemes. The contents of the file is not available to the renderer following the redirect, but if the redirect target is a SMB URL such as file://some.website.com/, then in some cases, Windows will connect to that server and attempt NTLM authentication, which can include sending hashed credentials.
Patches
This issue has been fixed in all current stable versions of Electron. Specifically, these versions contain the fixes:
- 21.0.0-beta.1
- 20.0.1
- 19.0.11
- 18.3.7
We recommend all apps upgrade to the latest stable version of Electron.
Workarounds
If upgrading isn't possible, this issue can be addressed without upgrading by preventing redirects to file:// URLs in the WebContents.on('will-redirect') event, for all WebContents:
app.on('web-contents-created', (e, webContents) => {
webContents.on('will-redirect', (e, url) => {
if (/^file:/.test(url)) e.preventDefault()
})
})
For more information
If you have any questions or comments about this advisory, email us at [email protected].
Credit
Thanks to user @coolcoolnoworries for reporting this issue.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 📦npm | electron | all versions | 18.3.7npm install electron@18.3.7 |
| 📦npm | electron | ≥ 20.0.0-beta.1&&< 20.0.1 | 20.0.1npm install electron@20.0.1 |
| 📦npm | electron | ≥ 19.0.0-beta.1&&< 19.0.11 | 19.0.11npm install electron@19.0.11 |
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for electron, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update electron to 18.3.7 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2022-36077 is resolved across your whole dependency graph.
Workarounds
If you can't upgrade right away: gate or disable the affected feature, validate untrusted input at the boundary, and avoid passing attacker-controlled data into the vulnerable path. O3's runtime protection blocks exploitation in production as an interim safeguard until the upgrade lands.
How O3 protects you
O3 Security's impact-aware SCA analyses which vulnerable code paths your application actually calls, so a match like CVE-2022-36077 can be triaged on real exposure rather than presence alone.
Tailored to CVE-2022-36077. Runtime protection reduces exposure until a permanent patch is applied and verified — it complements patching, it doesn't replace it.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2022-36077 in your dependencies?
O3 Security finds CVE-2022-36077 across npm dependencies, including transitive ones, and its impact-aware SCA ranks findings by whether your code actually calls the vulnerable path.