# CVE-2017-15404: Race condition in Chrome

> A local attacker can escalate privileges via a crafted HTML page due to improper symlink handling in Chrome OS crash reporting.

- **Severity:** High 7.8 (`CVSS:3.0/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H`)
- **Exploited in the wild:** Not known
- **Login needed:** Any signed-in user
- **Attackable:** Local or same network only
- **Victim action needed:** Not needed
- **Fix available:** No
- **Published:** 9 Jan 2019
- **Updated:** 5 Aug 2024
- **Also known as:** GHSA-3gxj-93jf-h822

## What is CVE-2017-15404?

CVE-2017-15404 is a high-severity vulnerability in Google Chrome, published on 9 Jan 2019. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, with no action from the victim.

### Official description

An ability to process crash dumps under root privileges and inappropriate symlinks handling could lead to a local privilege escalation in Crash Reporting in Google Chrome on Chrome OS prior to 61.0.3163.113 allowed a local attacker to perform privilege escalation via a crafted HTML page.

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

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2017-15404?

It affects 1 product.


Products: Google Chrome.

## How do I fix CVE-2017-15404?

No fix has been published for CVE-2017-15404 yet. Limit exposure of the affected software until one is available.

## Is CVE-2017-15404 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2017-15404 in the wild and no public exploit code.

## Other vulnerabilities in Google Chrome

- [CVE-2022-4135](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2022-4135/): Google Chromium GPU Heap Buffer Overflow (critical 9.6, exploited in the wild)
- [CVE-2020-16017](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2020-16017/): Google Chrome Use-After-Free (critical 9.6, exploited in the wild)
- [CVE-2020-16010](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2020-16010/): Google Chrome for Android UI Heap Buffer Overflow (critical 9.6, exploited in the wild)
- [CVE-2026-87491](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-87491/): Google Chromium V8 Out of Bounds Write (high 8.8, exploited in the wild)
- [CVE-2026-85046](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-85046/): Google Chromium V8 Type Confusion (high 8.8, exploited in the wild)

## Fix prompt for AI coding agents

```text
Check this codebase for CVE-2017-15404 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2017-15404 is a high-severity vulnerability in Google Chrome, published on 9 Jan 2019. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, with no action from the victim.
Exploitation: There is no known exploitation of CVE-2017-15404 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Affected product: Google Chrome. No package-level version data is available, so check the vendor advisory linked from the reference page.

Task:
1. Search the dependency manifests and lockfiles (for example package.json, package-lock.json, requirements.txt, poetry.lock, uv.lock, pom.xml, build.gradle, go.mod, Cargo.lock, Gemfile.lock) and any Dockerfiles for the affected packages, including transitive dependencies.
2. If an affected version is in use, upgrade it to the fixed version for its release line with the project's package manager, so the lockfile is regenerated. Prefer the smallest upgrade that fixes it.
3. If there is no fix, or the upgrade would break the build, do not guess: explain the risk and the safest workaround instead.
4. Run the tests and summarise what changed and why.
5. If nothing in the project is affected, say so and change nothing.

Reference: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2017-15404/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2017-15404/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2017-15404
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2017-15404
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2017-15404

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2017-15404/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.