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GHSA-jm7p-cc5g-qwxx CVE-2026-70597

Electron: Parent process code-sign check is spoofable

Medium npm
Severity
6.3 / 10
Medium · CVSS 3.1
Exploit chance (EPSS)
0.10%
Chance of exploitation in the next 30 days. Higher than 0.99% of scored vulnerabilities.
Known exploited
No
Not in CISA's catalog
Weakness
CWE-367 Time-of-check Time-of-use (TOCTOU) Race Condition
Fix
39.8.8
Upgrade electron to this version or later

Description

Impact

On macOS, the check Electron uses to confirm it was launched by a same-signed parent process could be bypassed by a local process. Apps that enable the fuse-based hardening restricting ELECTRON_RUN_AS_NODE and NODE_OPTIONS to same-signed parents rely on this check; a local attacker could bypass it and run their own code inside the signed app, inheriting its TCC permissions and keychain access.

Apps are only affected if they enable those macOS fuse-based restrictions. Apps that do not enable them are not affected.

Workarounds

There are no app side workarounds, you must update to a patched version of Electron.

Fixed Versions

  • 42.0.0-beta.3
  • 41.2.1
  • 40.9.0
  • 39.8.8

For more information

If you have any questions or comments about this advisory, email us at security@electronjs.org

Affected versions

npm

PackageVulnerableFixed in
electron
< 39.8.8
39.8.8
electron
>= 40.0.0-alpha.1, < 40.9.1
40.9.1
electron
>= 41.0.0-alpha.1, < 41.2.1
41.2.1
electron
>= 42.0.0-alpha.1, < 42.0.0-beta.3
42.0.0-beta.3

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 → 39.8.8

npm
npm install electron@39.8.8
yarn
yarn add electron@39.8.8
pnpm
pnpm add electron@39.8.8

Severity breakdown

CVSS 3.1 6.3

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

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

Weakness

CWE-367: Time-of-check Time-of-use (TOCTOU) Race Condition

The product checks the state of a resource before using that resource, but the resource's state can change between the check and the use in a way that invalidates the results of the check.

How to prevent it
  • Implementation: The most basic advice for TOCTOU vulnerabilities is to not perform a check before the use. This does not resolve the underlying issue of the execution of a function on a resource whose state and identity cannot be assured, but it does help to limit the false sense of security given by the check.
  • Implementation: When the file being altered is owned by the current user and group, set the effective gid and uid to that of the current user and group when executing this statement.
  • Architecture and Design: Limit the interleaving of operations on files from multiple processes.
  • Implementation, Architecture and Design: If you cannot perform operations atomically and you must share access to the resource between multiple processes or threads, then try to limit the amount of time (CPU cycles) between the check and use of the resource. This will not fix the problem, but it could make it more difficult for an attack to succeed.
  • Implementation: Recheck the resource after the use call to verify that the action was taken appropriately.
  • Architecture and Design: Ensure that some environmental locking mechanism can be used to protect resources effectively.
  • Implementation: Ensure that locking occurs before the check, as opposed to afterwards, such that the resource, as checked, is the same as it is when in use.

References

Timeline

  1. Published
  2. Last updated by the source
  3. Latest EPSS score
AdvisorySeverityWhy 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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