CVE-2020-15174: Unpreventable top-level navigation in Electron

Severity: high (CVSS 7.5 v3.1)
Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
EPSS: 1.3% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
Public exploit or detection template: none known
Published: 2020-10-06 · updated 2026-06-17
Weakness: CWE-20

Description

In Electron before versions 11.0.0-beta.1, 10.0.1, 9.3.0 or 8.5.1 the `will-navigate` event that apps use to prevent navigations to unexpected destinations as per our security recommendations can be bypassed when a sub-frame performs a top-frame navigation across sites. The issue is patched in versions 11.0.0-beta.1, 10.0.1, 9.3.0 or 8.5.1 As a workaround sandbox all your iframes using the sandbox attribute. This will prevent them creating top-frame navigations and is good practice anyway.

Affected products

electron: from 8.0.0 before 8.5.1; from 9.0.0 before 9.3.0; from 10.0.0 before 10.0.1 — fixed in 10.0.1, 8.5.1, 9.3.0

How to fix

Upgrade to a fixed version: electron 10.0.1, 8.5.1, 9.3.0. Check the vendor advisory for mitigations.

References

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