Vulnerability · Published Oct 30, 2026 · Assigned by fedora
CVE-2026-115683epiphany: TLS certificate warning bypass via race in tlsErrorPage message handler
Medium 6.8
In plain English
A medium-severity security flaw in Epiphany from GNOME. Proof-of-concept exploit code is public. The chance it is exploited in the next 30 days is estimated at 0.2% (higher than 13% of all known vulnerabilities). Fixed versions are available - upgrade the affected package.
Official description
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.
Affected packages & fixed versions
| Ecosystem | Package | Fixed in | Advisory |
|---|---|---|---|
| Debian:12 | epiphany-browser | no fix listed | DEBIAN-CVE-2026-115683 |
| Debian:13 | epiphany-browser | no fix listed | DEBIAN-CVE-2026-115683 |
| Debian:14 | epiphany-browser | 51.2-1 | DEBIAN-CVE-2026-115683 |
| Ubuntu:22.04:LTS | epiphany-browser | no fix listed | UBUNTU-CVE-2026-115683 |
| Ubuntu:24.04:LTS | epiphany-browser | no fix listed | UBUNTU-CVE-2026-115683 |
| Ubuntu:26.04:LTS | epiphany-browser | no fix listed | UBUNTU-CVE-2026-115683 |
| Ubuntu:26.10 | epiphany-browser | no fix listed | UBUNTU-CVE-2026-115683 |
Affected products (as reported)
Weakness: CWE-367 · Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:N
References
- https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2026-115683 vdb-entry, x_refsource_REDHAT
- RHBZ#2560012 issue-tracking, x_refsource_REDHAT
- https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/epiphany/-/work_items/2978
- https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/epiphany/-/merge_requests/2245
- https://beford.net/poc/ssl_poc.html