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ChromeWeb browser · Google

CVE-2014-7902

HIGH · 7.5 CVSS v2.0 Published 2014-11-19
Mitigation only
No fix yet — a mitigation exists. There is no fixed release. A documented workaround reduces exposure in the meantime.
See remediation →
84/100
Remediation priority · High
Remotely reachable No privileges Zero-click

Official description Straight from the sourceThe vendor's or NVD's own wording, published unedited. Authoritative, but often terse — it says what broke, rarely what to do.

NVD · unedited
Use-after-free vulnerability in PDFium, as used in Google Chrome before 39.0.2171.65, allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service or possibly have unspecified other impact via a crafted PDF document.

Technical summary Written by usOur analysis, written from the advisory, the CVSS vector and the affected-version data. It adds context the advisory leaves out, and never invents facts that are not in the source.

dbcve analysis · high confidence

Use-after-free vulnerability in PDFium (Google's PDF rendering library) allows remote attackers to cause denial of service or potentially achieve arbitrary code execution by delivering a specially crafted malicious PDF document to be opened in Google Chrome browsers prior to version 39.0.2171.65.

MitigationUpdate Google Chrome to version 39.0.2171.65 or later, which includes the patched PDFium library. Organizations should also ensure PDFium dependencies in any custom applications are updated to fixed versions.

Verify against the referenced sources before acting — the references below are authoritative for this CVE, this summary is not.

Affected products & versions What the vendor confirmedThe version ranges the vendor confirmed as vulnerable. If your version sits inside a range here, treat yourself as exposed until you have upgraded.

NVD · CPE data
ChromeWeb browser
Affected:= 39.0.2171.63

CVSS breakdown How the score is builtThe industry scoring standard. It rates how the flaw is reached, what it takes to exploit, and what an attacker gains — the score is derived from those, not the other way round.

From the vector
Attack vector
Network
Complexity
Low
Authentication
None
Confidentiality
Partial
Integrity
Partial
Availability
Partial

AV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:P/I:P/A:P

Am I affected? How to checkSteps we derive from the advisory and the affected-version data, so you can decide whether this CVE reaches your setup. They are a guide, not a scan — your own configuration is the authority.

dbcve checks

Work through these to decide whether this CVE applies to you.

  1. Check installed Google Chrome version
    Navigate to chrome://settings/help or use 'Help > About Google Chrome' to view the exact version number
    Affected if The displayed version is exactly 39.0.2171.63
  2. Verify Chrome PDF viewer is enabled
    Go to chrome://settings/content and check 'PDF documents' setting, or navigate to chrome://plugins and locate 'Chrome PDF Viewer'
    Affected if The PDF viewer plugin/handler is enabled (this is the default state; PDFium is used when this is active)
  3. Confirm PDF handling capability exists
    Try opening any PDF file in Chrome or check chrome://extensions for PDF-related extensions
    Affected if Chrome can open PDF files, meaning PDFium is actively loaded into memory

You are affected if your Google Chrome version is exactly 39.0.2171.63 AND the built-in PDF viewer (PDFium) is enabled, which is the default configuration.

Generated from the published advisory. Verify against your own configuration.

Check your environment

Paste your version and any relevant configuration and it will be compared against the affected criteria above. Do not include secrets or credentials.

AI-assisted, checked against the advisory. Informational, not a guarantee.

Remediation Closing itWhat it takes to close this. Where a vendor fix exists we point at it; where none exists we say so plainly, and can build one. Effort estimates are scoped from the advisory, not from your codebase.

From vendor data
Mitigation available No clean upgrade yet — mitigate in the meantime
Mitigation

Update Google Chrome to version 39.0.2171.65 or later, which includes the patched PDFium library. Organizations should also ensure PDFium dependencies in any custom applications are updated to fixed versions.

Fix this in Chrome Scoped from the published advisory
  • Consultation2.0 h
  • Implementation1.0 h
  • Testing2.0 h
  • Review / QA1.0 h
6.0 hours of engineering $1,060
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References Go to the primary sourcePrimary sources — vendor advisories, patches and trackers. Where our summary and a reference disagree, the reference wins.

Primary sources

Practitioner notes

Contributed

Peer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-2014-7902 in production — separate from our analysis above.

No notes yet

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What this is

A place for practitioners to share what actually worked: a mitigation you’ve tested, a configuration change, a version- or environment-specific caveat, or a link to a verified patch. The most useful notes rise to the top as peers upvote them, so the signal stays high.

What belongs here
  • Verified mitigations, workarounds, and config changes
  • Version or environment caveats, and links to real fixes
  • No weaponised exploit code, or anything meant to cause harm
  • No spam, self-promotion, credentials, or personal data