What’s Vulnerable › Vulnerabilities
CVE-2026-34768: Electron: Unquoted executable path in app.setLoginItemSettings on Windows
- Severity: high (CVSS 7.8 v3.1)
- Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
- EPSS: 0.1% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
- Public exploit or detection template: none known
- Published: 2026-04-04 · updated 2026-07-24
- Weakness: CWE-428
Description
Electron is a framework for writing cross-platform desktop applications using JavaScript, HTML and CSS. Prior to versions 38.8.6, 39.8.1, 40.8.0, and 41.0.0-beta.8, on Windows, app.setLoginItemSettings({openAtLogin: true}) wrote the executable path to the Run registry key without quoting. If the app is installed to a path containing spaces, an attacker with write access to an ancestor directory may be able to cause a different executable to run at login instead of the intended app. On a default Windows install, standard system directories are protected against writes by standard users, so exploitation typically requires a non-standard install location. This issue has been patched in versions 38.8.6, 39.8.1, 40.8.0, and 41.0.0-beta.8.
Affected products
- electron: before 38.8.6; from 39.0.0 before 39.8.1; from 40.0.0 before 40.8.0; 41.0.0-alpha1, 41.0.0-alpha2, 41.0.0-alpha3, 41.0.0-alpha4, 41.0.0-alpha5, 41.0.0-alpha6 (+7) — fixed in 38.8.6, 39.8.1, 40.8.0
How to fix
Upgrade to a fixed version: electron 38.8.6, 39.8.1, 40.8.0. Check the vendor advisory for mitigations.
References
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