Enabling Electron allowRunningInsecureContent¶

ID: js/enabling-electron-insecure-content
Kind: problem
Security severity: 8.8
Severity: error
Precision: very-high
Tags:
   - security
   - frameworks/electron
   - external/cwe/cwe-494
Query suites:
   - javascript-code-scanning.qls
   - javascript-security-extended.qls
   - javascript-security-and-quality.qls

Click to see the query in the CodeQL repository

Electron is secure by default through a policy banning the execution of content loaded over HTTP. Setting the allowRunningInsecureContent property of a webPreferences object to true will disable this policy.

Enabling the execution of insecure content is strongly discouraged.

Recommendation¶

Do not enable the allowRunningInsecureContent property.

Example¶

The following example shows allowRunningInsecureContent being enabled.

const mainWindow = new BrowserWindow({
  webPreferences: {
    allowRunningInsecureContent: true
  }
})

This is problematic, since it allows the execution of code from an untrusted origin.

References¶

Electron Documentation: Security, Native Capabilities, and Your Responsibility
Common Weakness Enumeration: CWE-494.

© GitHub, Inc.
Terms
Privacy