CVE-2026-5281

What is CVE-2026-5281?

Use after free in Dawn in Google Chrome prior to 146.0.7680.178 allowed a remote attacker who had compromised the renderer process to execute arbitrary code via a crafted HTML page. (Chromium security severity: High)

Timeline

• 2026-04-01Published to the U.S. National Vulnerability Database (NVD)
• 2026-04-01Added to the CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) catalog
• 2026-04-02First covered in a defend.network daily briefing
• 2026-04-15CISA federal remediation deadline (BOD 22-01)
• 2026-07-24NVD record last updated

CISA Known Exploited Vulnerability

Google Dawn Use-After-Free Vulnerability

Affected product

Google Dawn

NVD also lists CPE entries for: Google Chrome, Apple Macos, Linux Kernel, Microsoft Windows

References

• https://chromereleases.googleblog.com/2026/03/stable-channel-update-for-desktop_31.html
• https://issues.chromium.org/issues/491518608
• https://www.cisa.gov/known-exploited-vulnerabilities-catalog?field_cve=CVE-2026-5281
• https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-5281
• https://www.cisa.gov/known-exploited-vulnerabilities-catalog

Referenced in our briefings & reports

• Chrome & TrueConf zero-days exploited; widespread malware campaigns (2026-04-02)

Related vulnerabilities

• CVE-2026-11645 – Google Chromium V8 (same product)
• CVE-2026-75682 – Adobe Connect (same product)
• CVE-2026-48449 – Adobe Campaign (same product)
• CVE-2026-34621 – Adobe Acrobat And Reader (same product)
• CVE-2026-53359 – Linux Kernel (same product)
• CVE-2026-46242 – Linux Kernel (same product)

Google: 75 known exploited vulnerabilities (CISA KEV) →