CVE-2026-115683 is a vulnerability in GNOME Epiphany
Published on October 30, 2026
epiphany: TLS certificate warning bypass via race in tlsErrorPage message handler
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.
Vulnerability Analysis
CVE-2026-115683 can be exploited with network access, requires user interaction. This vulnerability is consided to have a high level of attack complexity. Public availability of a proof of concept (POC) exploit exists for CVE-2026-115683. The potential impact of an exploit of this vulnerability is considered to have a high impact on confidentiality and integrity, and no impact on availability.
Timeline
Reported to Red Hat.
Made public.
Weakness Type
What is a TOCTTOU Vulnerability?
The software checks the state of a resource before using that resource, but the resource's state can change between the check and the use in a way that invalidates the results of the check. This can cause the software to perform invalid actions when the resource is in an unexpected state. This weakness can be security-relevant when an attacker can influence the state of the resource between check and use. This can happen with shared resources such as files, memory, or even variables in multithreaded programs.
CVE-2026-115683 has been classified to as a TOCTTOU vulnerability or weakness.
Products Associated with CVE-2026-115683
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Affected Versions
GNOME Epiphany:- Before 51.1 is affected.