Google Patches 5th Chrome Zero-Day Exploited in 2026

Summary

Google has released an update for Chrome (version 149) to address 74 vulnerabilities, including a zero-day exploit identified as CVE-2026-11645. This high-severity vulnerability, an out-of-bounds read/write issue in V8, allows remote attackers to execute arbitrary code. This marks the fifth exploited Chrome zero-day discovered in 2026, with threat actors likely chaining it with other exploits.

Full text

Google on Monday announced a Chrome 149 update that patches 74 vulnerabilities, including a zero-day that has been exploited in the wild. The exploited vulnerability is tracked as CVE-2026-11645. It has been described as a high-severity out-of-bounds read/write issue in V8, allowing a remote attacker to execute arbitrary code inside a sandbox using a specially crafted HTML page. No information is available about the attacks exploiting CVE-2026-11645, but threat actors have likely chained it with a sandbox escape flaw. According to Google’s advisory, the zero-day was reported to the company in late April by an anonymous researcher. Based on the Google-assigned identifier ‘303f06e3’, the same expert previously reported other Chrome vulnerabilities. The researcher has been awarded $55,000 for responsibly disclosing CVE-2026-11645. This is the fifth Chrome zero-day to be exploited in 2026. The others are CVE-2026-2441, CVE-2026-3909, CVE-2026-3910, and CVE-2026-5281.Advertisement. Scroll to continue reading. The number of vulnerabilities found by Google itself in Chrome has surged, with hundreds of flaws discovered over the past few months. The surge was most likely driven by AI, but the tech giant has yet to disclose which models or tools it has used. A vast majority of the flaws patched in the latest Chrome release — most rated critical and high severity — were found by Google. The company recently reduced the base bug bounties for Chrome vulnerabilities due to AI. Related: Chrome 149 Patches 429 Vulnerabilities Related: Chrome 148 Update Patches 151 Vulnerabilities Related: Chrome 148 Rolls Out With 127 Security Fixes Written By Eduard Kovacs Eduard Kovacs (@EduardKovacs) is senior managing editor at SecurityWeek. He worked as a high school IT teacher before starting a career in journalism in 2011. Eduard holds a bachelor’s degree in industrial informatics and a master’s degree in computer techniques applied in electrical engineering. 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Indicators of Compromise

• cve — CVE-2026-11645
• cve — CVE-2026-2441
• cve — CVE-2026-3909
• cve — CVE-2026-3910
• cve — CVE-2026-5281

Entities