CVE-2026-7978 Privilege escalation in Chrome

What is CVE-2026-7978?

CVE-2026-7978 is a high-severity vulnerability in Google Chrome, published on 6 May 2026. An attacker can exploit it over the internet without logging in, with no action from the victim.

Official description

Inappropriate implementation in Companion in Google Chrome on Mac prior to 148.0.7778.96 allowed a remote attacker to perform OS-level privilege escalation via malicious network traffic. (Chromium security severity: Medium)

Weakness: CWE-693

Which versions are affected by CVE-2026-7978?

It affects 1 product.

Products include Google Chrome.

How do I fix CVE-2026-7978?

Upgrade to a fixed version.

Is CVE-2026-7978 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2026-7978 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Other vulnerabilities in Google Chrome

• CVE-2022-4135 Google Chromium GPU Heap Buffer Overflow Exploited Critical 9.6
• CVE-2020-16017 Google Chrome Use-After-Free Exploited Critical 9.6
• CVE-2020-16010 Google Chrome for Android UI Heap Buffer Overflow Exploited Critical 9.6
• CVE-2026-87491 Google Chromium V8 Out of Bounds Write Exploited High 8.8
• CVE-2026-85046 Google Chromium V8 Type Confusion Exploited High 8.8

All Google Chrome vulnerabilities

Sources

• CVE record
• NVD
• OSV
• GitHub advisory
• How this page is made

Also known as DEBIAN-CVE-2026-7978, ECHO-8869-beac-fa6d, GHSA-vc4p-4fpj-c36p, MINI-rp9r-vvx4-fjjc.