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@renovate renovate bot commented Oct 20, 2025

This PR contains the following updates:

Package Change Age Confidence
playwright (source) 1.55.0 -> 1.55.1 age confidence

GitHub Vulnerability Alerts

CVE-2025-59288

Summary

Use of curl with the -k (or --insecure) flag in installer scripts allows attackers to deliver arbitrary executables via Man-in-the-Middle (MitM) attacks. This can lead to full system compromise, as the downloaded files are installed as privileged applications.

Details

The following scripts in the microsoft/playwright repository at commit bee11cbc28f24bd18e726163d0b9b1571b4f26a8 use curl -k to fetch and install executable packages without verifying the authenticity of the SSL certificate:

In each case, the shell scripts download a browser installer package using curl -k and immediately install it:

curl --retry 3 -o ./<pkg-file> -k <url>
sudo installer -pkg /tmp/<pkg-file> -target /

Disabling SSL verification (-k) means the download can be intercepted and replaced with malicious content.

PoC

A high-level exploitation scenario:

  1. An attacker performs a MitM attack on a network where the victim runs one of these scripts.
  2. The attacker intercepts the HTTPS request and serves a malicious package (for example, a trojaned browser installer).
  3. Because curl -k is used, the script downloads and installs the attacker's payload without any certificate validation.
  4. The attacker's code is executed with system privileges, leading to full compromise.

No special configuration is needed: simply running these scripts on any untrusted or hostile network is enough.

Impact

This is a critical Remote Code Execution (RCE) vulnerability due to improper SSL certificate validation (CWE-295: Improper Certificate Validation). Any user or automation running these scripts is at risk of arbitrary code execution as root/admin, system compromise, data theft, or persistent malware installation. The risk is especially severe because browser packages are installed with elevated privileges and the scripts may be used in CI/CD or developer environments.

Fix

Credit

  • This vulnerability was uncovered by tooling by Socket
  • This vulnerability was confirmed by @​evilpacket
  • This vulnerability was reported by @​JLLeitschuh at Socket

Disclosure


Release Notes

microsoft/playwright (playwright)

v1.55.1

Compare Source

Highlights

#​37479 - [Bug]: Upgrade Chromium to 140.0.7339.186.
#​37147 - [Regression]: Internal error: step id not found.
#​37146 - [Regression]: HTML reporter displays a broken chip link when there are no projects.
#​37137 - Revert "fix(a11y): track inert elements as hidden".
#​37532 - chore: do not use -k option

Browser Versions

  • Chromium 140.0.7339.186
  • Mozilla Firefox 141.0
  • WebKit 26.0

This version was also tested against the following stable channels:

  • Google Chrome 139
  • Microsoft Edge 139

Configuration

📅 Schedule: Branch creation - "" (UTC), Automerge - At any time (no schedule defined).

🚦 Automerge: Disabled by config. Please merge this manually once you are satisfied.

Rebasing: Whenever PR becomes conflicted, or you tick the rebase/retry checkbox.

🔕 Ignore: Close this PR and you won't be reminded about this update again.


  • If you want to rebase/retry this PR, check this box

This PR was generated by Mend Renovate. View the repository job log.

@renovate renovate bot added the dependencies Pull requests that update a dependency file label Oct 20, 2025
@renovate renovate bot force-pushed the renovate/npm-playwright-vulnerability branch from 9e738cc to e563450 Compare October 21, 2025 23:04
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