CVE-2026-5281 — CHROME
HIGHCVE-2026-5281 is a high-severity (CVSS 8.8) Use After Free vulnerability in google chrome. It is in CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog (added 2026-04-01) — treat it as actively exploited and patch now. A fix is available — see the affected versions and patch details below.
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.…
Exploitation Status
Actively exploited in the wild
- Confirmed by CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog on 2026-04-01. Federal agencies were required to remediate by 2026-04-15.
- A successful exploit gives an attacker total control of the affected component, not partial access.
Exploitation and automatability from CISA (KEV catalog and SSVC triage) for CVE-2026-5281.
EPSS Exploitation Probability
Probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, from FIRST.org EPSS.
How urgent is this, really
CVE-2026-5281 by exploitation likelihood (EPSS) against impact (CVSS). Outside the shaded patch-first corner.
Where this sits among everything scored
Of 394,803 CVEs with a current EPSS score, this one falls in the < 10% band (highlighted). Counts from FIRST.org, log-scaled.
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)
Affected Products
chromegoogleResearch use only. For defensive security, authorized penetration testing, and academic research only. Never execute exploit code against systems without explicit written authorization.
Detection & mitigation playbook
Vendor / applianceDetect
Inventory every google chrome deployment and check each version against the affected-products list above.
Fix
Apply the google chrome security patch or hotfix for CVE-2026-5281 on the affected version, following the vendor advisory for your exact build.
Workarounds
Constrain what reaches the vulnerable code: limit the size and shape of untrusted input, isolate the affected component in a sandboxed or least-privileged process, and enable the platform's memory-safety mitigations (ASLR, stack protector, hardened allocator) so an out-of-bounds access is more likely to fail closed than to be exploitable. Alongside that, restrict the management interface to trusted networks and apply the vendor's recommended configuration mitigations.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2026-5281 being exploited in your environment?
Detect and block the exploit chain at execution, on systems you cannot patch yet.