Electron: Sandboxed iframe can bypass the allow-popups restriction via the OpenURL navigation pathGHSA-9f4c-93c8-jc8g
HIGHFix: electron/electron#51437GHSA-9f4c-93c8-jc8g is a high-severity (CVSS 7.2) CWE-693 vulnerability in electron. A fix is available for electron — see the affected versions and patch details below.
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 GHSA-9f4c-93c8-jc8g.
EPSS Exploitation Probability
Probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, from FIRST.org EPSS.
How urgent is this, really
GHSA-9f4c-93c8-jc8g by exploitation likelihood (EPSS) against impact (CVSS). Outside the shaded patch-first corner.
Where this sits among everything scored
Of 383,485 CVEs with a current EPSS score, this one falls in the < 10% band (highlighted). Counts from FIRST.org, log-scaled.
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
A sandboxed iframe without the allow-popups keyword could still open a new window (or trigger setWindowOpenHandler) with no user interaction, because new-window navigations taking the OpenURL path did not apply the iframe sandbox popup restriction.
Apps that embed untrusted content in sandboxed iframes and rely on the absence of allow-popups to prevent window creation are affected. Apps that deny window creation in setWindowOpenHandler, or that do not embed untrusted content in sandboxed iframes, are not affected.
Workarounds
Return { action: 'deny' } from setWindowOpenHandler for any content you do not trust, rather than relying on the iframe sandbox alone.
Fixed Versions
42.0.141.10.339.8.10
For more information
If you have any questions or comments about this advisory, email Electron at [email protected]
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 📦npm | electron | ≥ 42.0.0-alpha.1&&< 42.0.1 | 42.0.1npm install electron@42.0.1 |
| 📦npm | electron | ≥ 40.0.0-alpha.1&&< 41.10.3 | 41.10.3npm install electron@41.10.3 |
| 📦npm | electron | all versions | 39.8.10npm install electron@39.8.10 |
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 42.0.1 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms GHSA-9f4c-93c8-jc8g 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.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is GHSA-9f4c-93c8-jc8g in your dependencies?
Find it across npm, including transitive dependencies.