Chromium extensions are currently allowed to navigate to file URLs through chrome.tabs and chrome.windows APIs. However, most extensions do not use these, and they can sometimes introduce a vulnerability where an extension unexpectedly navigates to a file URL of an attacker’s choice. This can result in a number of issues, such as local file disclosure.
Following discussions in the WECG, we plan to restrict navigation to file URLs (in Chromium 118), unless the “Allow access to file URLs” option is enabled on the extension’s details page. The use of navigation to file URLs is low in Chrome (approximately 0.02%), and we expect that for most extensions there will be no impact. In the small number of other cases, we believe that the toggle is a reasonable requirement.
Firefox already restricts file URLs, and Safari supports the change.
Along similar lines, we recently landed a change to expand restrictions on javascript URLs to all API methods. This was already blocked for tabs.update, and opening these URLs outside of an existing tab has limited use. This will land in 117 and we do not expect any impact.
As always, please do let us know if you have any feedback.
Thanks,
Jun on behalf of Chrome Extension team
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