GHSA-56pc-6jqp-xqj8 CVE-2020-15215

Context isolation bypass in Electron

Medium npm

Severity: 5.6 / 10; Medium · CVSS 3.1
Exploit chance (EPSS): 0.68%; Chance of exploitation in the next 30 days. Higher than 52.54% of scored vulnerabilities.
Known exploited: No; Not in CISA's catalog
Weakness: CWE-668 Exposure of Resource to Wrong Sphere; CWE-693 Protection Mechanism Failure
Fix: 8.5.2; Upgrade electron to this version or later

Description

Impact

Apps using both contextIsolation and sandbox: true are affected. Apps using both contextIsolation and nativeWindowOpen: true are affected.

This is a context isolation bypass, meaning that code running in the main world context in the renderer can reach into the isolated Electron context and perform privileged actions.

Workarounds

There are no app-side workarounds, you must update your Electron version to be protected.

Fixed Versions

11.0.0-beta.6
10.1.2
9.3.1
8.5.2

For more information

If you have any questions or comments about this advisory:

Email us at security@electronjs.org

Affected versions

npm

Package	Vulnerable	Fixed in
electron	`>= 8.0.0-beta.0, < 8.5.2`	`8.5.2`
electron	`>= 9.0.0-beta.0, < 9.3.1`	`9.3.1`
electron	`>= 10.0.0-beta.0, < 10.1.2`	`10.1.2`
electron	`>= 11.0.0-beta.0, < 11.0.0-beta.6`	`11.0.0-beta.6`

How to fix

Move to the fixed version or later with your package manager, update the lockfile, and run your tests. If the package only arrives through another dependency, upgrade that dependency first. If none of its releases pulls a fixed version yet, force the version with your package manager's override.

electron npm → `8.5.2`

npm

npm install electron@8.5.2

yarn

yarn add electron@8.5.2

pnpm

pnpm add electron@8.5.2

Severity breakdown

CVSS 3.1 5.6

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:L/A:L

Attack vector: Network
Attack complexity: High
Privileges required: None
User interaction: None
Scope: Unchanged
Confidentiality: Low
Integrity: Low
Availability: Low

Weakness

CWE-668: Exposure of Resource to Wrong Sphere

The product exposes a resource to the wrong control sphere, providing unintended actors with inappropriate access to the resource.

CWE-693: Protection Mechanism Failure

The product does not use or incorrectly uses a protection mechanism that provides sufficient defense against directed attacks against the product.

References

Advisories

nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2020-15215

Timeline

Oct 6, 2020 Published
Jul 8, 2026 Last updated by the source
Nov 1, 2026 Latest EPSS score

Advisory	Severity	Why it's related
GHSA-qqvq-6xgj-jw8g Electron affected by libvpx's heap buffer overflow in vp8 encoding	High Known exploited	Also affects electron
GHSA-j7hp-h8jx-5ppr libwebp: OOB write in BuildHuffmanTable	High Known exploited	Also affects electron
GHSA-995f-9x5r-2rcj Heap buffer overflow in GPU	Critical Known exploited	Also affects electron
GHSA-jr5w-w6x2-84p9 Electron: Mitigation for compromised eMudhra intermediate certificates	High	Also affects electron
GHSA-h3v5-h239-pg29 Electron: Off-screen rendering on macOS trusts GPU-supplied frame geometry	Low	Also affects electron
GHSA-3qxv-5xgr-q7w9 Electron: Frame subscription trusts GPU-supplied frame geometry	Low	Also affects electron
GHSA-997q-gvvc-jwmx Electron: openExternal permission requests can be attributed to the wrong origin	Medium	Also affects electron
GHSA-fw47-9c62-h3vw Electron: HID and USB permission checks can be attributed to the wrong origin	Medium	Also affects electron

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