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Race in Epiphany lets websites bypass TLS certificate warnings

Priority HIGH 65CWE-367Published · Updated

Key facts

Attack vector
Network
Privileges required
None
User interaction
Required
Attack complexity
High
Impact type
—
Confidentiality · integrity · availability
High · High · None
Fix status
Fixed

Attack profile from CVSS 3.1 · CNA. Fix status from CNA.

Summary

GNOME Epiphany before 51.1 has a race condition (CWE-367) in its TLS error page message handler. A malicious site visited by a user can use a brief timing window during a redirect to disable certificate warnings for another host until Epiphany restarts. This enables man-in-the-middle attacks or spoofing of that host. A public proof of concept exists.

Written with Claude Haiku 5.5 from the sources below · 2026-11-02

Description from the CNA

A race condition in Epiphany allows a malicious website to bypass the TLS/SSL certificate warning page. Epiphany registers the main-world script message handler "tlsErrorPage" so its internal TLS error page can implement "Accept Risk and Proceed". The handler was registered immediately before loading the error page, leaving a brief window where the previously loaded untrusted origin could still call window.webkit.messageHandlers.tlsErrorPage.postMessage(...). The only authorization check compares a numeric WebKit page id that increments predictably; an attacker can burst-guess ids and approve a certificate exception with no user click. If a victim visits malicious site A that redirects to site B with an invalid certificate, site A can, for a few milliseconds, disable TLS certificate error warnings for host B until Epiphany is restarted, enabling man-in-the-middle or site spoofing for that host. Upstream report: https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/epiphany/-/work_items/2978 Proof of concept: https://beford.net/poc/ssl_poc.html Fix: https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/epiphany/-/merge_requests/2245 (register handlers on LOAD_COMMITTED). No fixed release tagged yet; reporter and maintainer describe all current versions as affected. Maintainer notes the risky registration timing dates to commit 1da1caed (Epiphany 45.x era); before that the handlers were always registered and similarly reachable from web content.

Why it matters now

Exploitation Proof of concept CISA SSVC · not in CISA KEV
EPSS 0.0022 12th percentileScored 2026-11-07
Fix Fixed Epiphany (GNOME): 51.1

SSVC decision points

CISA ADP · SSVC 2.0.3

Exploitation
Poc
Automatable
No
Technical impact
Total

The decision (Track, Attend, Act) also depends on your mission and well-being impact; see CISA's SSVC guide.

Affected products

VendorProductAffected versionsFixed inStatusSource
GNOMEEpiphanybefore 51.151.1Patch availableCNA
  • Epiphany VendorGNOME Affected before 51.1 Fixed in 51.1 Patch available CNA

Remediation

Upgrade GNOME Epiphany to version 51.1 or later, which is the fixed version.

Written with Claude Haiku 5.5 from the sources below · 2026-11-02

  • Fix · CNA Epiphany (GNOME) Fixed in 51.1

Vendor assessments

Red Hat

Red Hat's page for this CVE →

Not affected: 1 product
  • Red Hat

Timeline

  1. 2026-10-30 Threatist record created from CVE-2026-115683
  2. 2026-10-30 CISA SSVC decision points changed
  3. 2026-10-30 Priority changed: MEDIUM → HIGH
  4. 2026-10-30 Alias added: GHSA-rgq4-6fxx-v9rg
  5. 2026-11-02 Fix available: [email protected] · CNA

References

  • TI-2023-23091 Gnome-maps: gnome maps is vulnerable to a code injection attack (similar to xss) via its service.json CVSS 3.1CRITICAL 9.8
  • TI-2026-41775 Glib: off-by-one error in glib/gkeyfile.c via "g_key_file_get_locale_string_list" CVSS 3.1HIGH 8.6
  • TI-2026-41772 Glib: out-of-bounds read in glib/gdatetime.c:g_date_time_get_ymd via invalid gdatetime CVSS 3.1HIGH 7.5
  • TI-2026-03716 Libsoup: libsoup: denial of service via use-after-free in http/2 server CVSS 3.1HIGH 7.5
  • TI-2024-28393 Integer overflow in GNOME G Structured File Library CVSS 3.1HIGH 8.4
  • TI-2024-24253 Integer overflow in GNOME G Structured File Library CVSS 3.1HIGH 8.4
See all 402 →

Sources