A recent security vulnerability, identified as CVE-2025-6555, has been discovered in Google Chrome's animation component. This "use after free" flaw allows remote attackers to potentially exploit heap corruption through specially crafted HTML pages. The vulnerability affects Chrome versions prior to 138.0.7204.49 and has been assigned a medium severity rating by the Chromium security team.
"Use after free" vulnerabilities occur when a program continues to use a pointer after it has been freed, leading to unpredictable behavior, including crashes and arbitrary code execution. In the case of CVE-2025-6555, the flaw resides within Chrome's animation handling, making it susceptible to exploitation via malicious web content.
Microsoft Edge, built upon the Chromium engine, is also impacted by this vulnerability. Microsoft has acknowledged the issue and confirmed that Edge will incorporate the necessary Chromium updates to address the flaw. Users are advised to consult the Google Chrome Releases for detailed information on the updates.
To mitigate the risk associated with CVE-2025-6555, users should promptly update their browsers to the latest versions where this vulnerability has been patched. Regularly updating software is a critical practice to protect against known security threats.
For more technical details and updates on this vulnerability, refer to the National Vulnerability Database entry for CVE-2025-6555.
Source: MSRC Security Update Guide - Microsoft Security Response Center
