CVE-2018-15685

published 2018-08-23

CVE-2018-15685: GitHub Electron 1.7.15, 1.8.7, 2.0.7, and 3.0.0-beta.6, in certain scenarios involving IFRAME elements and "nativeWindowOpen: true" or "sandbox: true" options…

Priority P2 62 high 8.1 CVSS 3.0

AV N AC H PR N UI N S U C H I H A H

EXPLOIT

GitHub Electron 1.7.15, 1.8.7, 2.0.7, and 3.0.0-beta.6, in certain scenarios involving IFRAME elements and "nativeWindowOpen: true" or "sandbox: true" options, is affected by a WebPreferences vulnerability that can be leveraged to perform remote code execution.

Affected

8 ranges

Vendor	Product	Version range	Fixed in
electron	electron	>= 1.7.0 < 1.7.16	1.7.16
electron	electron	>= 1.8.0 < 1.8.8	1.8.8
electron	electron	>= 2.0.0 < 2.0.8	2.0.8
electron	electron	>= 3.0.0-beta.1 < 3.0.0-beta.7	3.0.0-beta.7
electronjs	electron	—	—
electronjs	electron	—	—
electronjs	electron	—	—
electronjs	electron	—	—

Detection & IOCs extracted from sources · hover to see the quote

url https://github.com/matt-/CVE-2018-15685↗

url https://gitlab.com/exploit-database/exploitdb-bin-sploits/-/raw/main/bin-sploits/45272.zip↗

• → Look for Electron apps using 'nativeWindowOpen: true' or 'sandbox: true' WebPreferences options combined with nested IFRAME elements, as these configurations are the prerequisite for exploitation. ↗
• → Target Electron versions 1.7.15, 1.8.7, 2.0.7, and 3.0.0-beta.6 for patching/detection prioritization; processes running these versions are exploitable. ↗
• → Monitor for Electron renderer processes where nodeIntegration is disabled but child windows are spawned via nested IFRAMEs — exploitation re-enables node bindings through WebPreferences inheritance bypass. ↗
• → Detect exploitation attempts originating from XSS or remotely controlled URLs within Electron-rendered pages that attempt to open child windows. ↗

• · The vulnerability only manifests under specific WebPreferences configurations; apps NOT using 'nativeWindowOpen: true' or 'sandbox: true' with nested child windows are not affected. ↗
• · The PoC main.js deliberately disables nodeIntegration in the main process, demonstrating that the bypass works even when nodeIntegration is explicitly set to false — detection rules should not rely solely on nodeIntegration=true as an indicator. ↗

CVSS provenance

nvd v3.0 8.1 HIGH CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

nvd v2.0 6.8 MEDIUM AV:N/AC:M/Au:N/C:P/I:P/A:P

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