What’s Vulnerable › Vulnerabilities

CVE-2026-42890: actual Allows Electron to Run As Node

• Severity: medium (CVSS 4.8 v4.0)
• 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: 2026-06-12 · updated 2026-10-26
• Weakness: CWE-94

Description

Actual is an open-source personal finance application. In the macOS desktop application version 25.x (built on Electron 39.2.7), the ELECTRON_RUN_AS_NODE fuse is not disabled, allowing an attacker who can place a file on disk or control command-line arguments to invoke the signed Actual.app binary with the ELECTRON_RUN_AS_NODE=1 environment variable set. This converts the application into a Node.js REPL capable of executing arbitrary code that inherits the application's entitlements and code signature, bypassing macOS Gatekeeper review. Version 26.5.0 patches the issue.

Affected products

• actualbudget actual: before 26.5.0

References

• https://actualbudget.org/blog/release-26.5.0
• https://github.com/actualbudget/actual/security/advisories/GHSA-7rvm-xjpp-63r9

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