Security researchers spent 6 days doing their Chromework, built 1B user exploit

Security researchers from startup Xbow utilized OpenAI's GPT-5.6 Sol model to exploit three zero-day vulnerabilities in Google Chrome, creating a full-chain exploit capable of executing code outside the browser's sandbox on Windows machines. The team believes this vulnerability affects around one billion users worldwide. Google compensated the Xbow team with a $250,000 bounty, their highest reward for a Chrome full-chain exploit.

The security researchers, comprising Brendan Dolan-Gavitt, Andres Luksenberg, Baul Lee, and Willem Pinckaers, spent just six days during Black Hat and DEF CON conferences, along with approximately $40,000 in token charges, to discover the vulnerabilities and construct the exploit chain. Xbow CEO and founder Oege de Moor expressed amazement at the efficiency of the team, stating that experts typically spend six months to achieve similar results.

The exploit chain, involving a V8 compiler bug, an animated-WebP decoder bug, and a memory-safety bug in Crashpad, initially allowed attackers to gain read and write access to V8's pointer-compression cage. The final stage exploited an overflow in Crashpad to cross the outer process boundary and achieve unsandboxed code execution on the host.

Google has since patched the vulnerabilities, but users must update to version 152.0.7977.82 or later to ensure protection. The researchers emphasized that the deployment of large language models (LLMs) like GPT-5.6-Sol has significantly lowered the bar for attackers, demanding enhanced cybersecurity measures.