Pgadmin: >> Pgadmin 4 >> 6.18 Security Vulnerabilities
pgAdmin 4's Import/Export Data tool builds a psql \copy (...) command line by interpolating a user-supplied SQL query into a Jinja template and passing the rendered line to psql via --command. To stop an attacker from breaking out of the (...) wrapper, create_import_export_job() (route POST /import_export/job/<sid>, gated only by the ordinary, commonly-granted tools_import_export_data permission) validated the query with a hand-written parenthesis-balance checker, _is_query_parens_balanced(). That checker always treated a backslash before a single quote (\') as escaping the quote, i.e. as if standard_conforming_strings were off. PostgreSQL has defaulted standard_conforming_strings to on since 9.1 (2010), the default on every PostgreSQL version pgAdmin 4 currently supports (13-18); under that default psql's own \copy tokenizer treats \ as an ordinary character, so a single quote immediately after it closes the string literal. A query such as SELECT 'a\') TO PROGRAM 'echo pwned' x' was therefore accepted as "balanced" by pgAdmin's checker (which believed the ) was still inside the string), while psql, run through the actual rendered command line, closes the string at that point and treats the following ) as the end of the wrapping \copy (...) subquery, exposing an attacker-chosen TO PROGRAM '<command>' clause that psql executes via popen() -- independent of a subsequent syntax error later on the same line. This is the same class of bug as CVE-2025-12762/CVE-2025-13780 (RCE via psql meta-command/COPY injection during PLAIN-format dump restore), reached through an independently written defense in a different module (Import/Export Data rather than Restore) that had its own, different logic bug (inverted backslash-escape semantics rather than a BOM-defeated regex anchor).
The fix rejects any backslash inside a single-quoted string in the query outright, rather than picking one of the two possible psql interpretations. This is intentionally conservative: because the correct interpretation of \ depends on the target server's standard_conforming_strings setting, which the checker cannot reliably know at validation time, refusing the query is safer than guessing.
This issue affects pgAdmin 4: from the introduction of _is_query_parens_balanced() before 9.18.
CVSS Score
9.4
EPSS Score
0.004
Published
2026-07-31
In SERVER mode, pgAdmin 4 enforces authentication per route via the @pga_login_required decorator; the application's before_request hook only handles desktop-mode auto-login and the Kerberos/Webserver-auth redirect, so any route shipped without the decorator is reachable without authentication (CWE-306). This is the same defect class previously fixed as CVE-2026-12046 (the sqleditor close/update_connection routes).
A follow-up sweep, prompted by a report describing an incomplete fix for CVE-2026-12046, found further routes missing @pga_login_required: the Constraints blueprint's nodes and proplist (object listing) routes and its delete route (a state-mutating DELETE that removes table constraints); preferences.get_all_cli (GET, discloses all CLI-settable preference values); debugger.close (DELETE); and schema_diff.close (DELETE). An unauthenticated network client could therefore enumerate constraint metadata, delete table constraints, read preference values, and force-close debugger or schema-diff sessions belonging to other users, without ever authenticating.
Fix adds the missing @pga_login_required decorator (and the corresponding import to the Constraints module) to each of these routes. The change is decorator-only; no behavioral changes to the underlying handlers.
This issue affects pgAdmin 4 in SERVER mode: the Constraints and Debugger routes from 1.0, the Schema Diff close route from 4.18, and preferences.get_all_cli from 8.2, all before 9.17.
CVSS Score
6.9
EPSS Score
0.002
Published
2026-07-31
The fix for CVE-2026-12044 in pgAdmin 4 9.16 hardened qtLiteral and switched sixteen COMMENT ON / pgstattuple / pgstatindex templates to it, but missed several sinks that had been placed in test_sql_string_literal_lint.py's ALLOWLIST on the incorrect assumption that schema, table, publication, and subscription names sourced from pg_catalog via the browser tree could never contain an apostrophe. PostgreSQL permits arbitrary characters in quoted identifiers, so a low-privileged user able to CREATE TABLE, CREATE PUBLICATION, or CREATE SUBSCRIPTION can plant an apostrophe'd object name that breaks out of the unescaped '{{ name }}' template interpolation the moment any user (including a higher-privileged one) opens that object's Statistics or Dependencies tab, allowing arbitrary SQL statement injection in the viewing user's database session.
Affected sinks: the Index Statistics query for all-indexes listing (coll_stats.sql, both the 16_plus and default PostgreSQL-version template variants -- distinct from the single-index stats.sql path already fixed in CVE-2026-12044), and the publication and subscription dependencies.sql / get_position.sql templates (both the pg and ppas/EPAS dialect variants for publications).
Fix switches all of these templates to qtLiteral(conn) for name interpolation, and updates publications/__init__.py and subscriptions/__init__.py to pass conn=self.conn into the dependencies.sql render_template call so the qtLiteral filter has a connection to quote against. The corresponding ALLOWLIST entries in test_sql_string_literal_lint.py are removed now that these sinks are properly escaped rather than merely assumed safe. A behavioral regression test renders each fixed template with a stacked-statement apostrophe payload and asserts both that the object name appears exactly as qtLiteral-escaped and that the rendered SQL parses as exactly one statement, verifying the assertion genuinely fails against the pre-patch raw-interpolation form.
This issue affects pgAdmin 4: the Index Statistics sink from 1.0, and the Publications/Subscriptions sinks from 5.0, both before 9.17.
CVSS Score
8.7
EPSS Score
0.004
Published
2026-07-31
HTML injection in pgAdmin 4's cloud deployment module. The verify_credentials, deploy, regions, and update-server endpoints under /rds/, /azure/, /google/, and the top-level /cloud/ blueprint propagated AWS / Azure / Google SDK exception text — and the related file-resolution and database-commit exception text — into the JSON response body (the info and errormsg fields) without HTML-encoding. The Cloud Wizard frontend rendered these strings through html-react-parser, so an attacker-influenced exception message embedded structural HTML directly into the wizard's DOM.
The reported entry point is /rds/verify_credentials/. An authenticated pgAdmin user submits a crafted access_key whose value contains an <iframe/src=...> payload; AWS STS rejects the credential with an IncompleteSignature exception whose text quotes the access_key verbatim; the pgAdmin backend forwards that text into the JSON info field; the Cloud Wizard's FormFooterMessage parses it as HTML. The browser fetches the iframe's src from an attacker-controlled host, and JavaScript executing inside the cross-origin iframe writes to parent.location, redirecting the victim's pgAdmin tab. Because the injection renders inside pgAdmin's own interface, X-Frame-Options and Content-Security-Policy frame-ancestors do not mitigate it. Baseline impact is self-targeted (the same user who supplied the payload sees the injection); escalation against other authenticated users requires an additional cross-site request-forgery primitive capable of submitting the malformed credential request with a valid X-pgA-CSRFToken in the victim's browser context.
The same unsanitised-error-into-JSON pattern was present across multiple sibling endpoints — Azure's check_cluster_name_availability, every Google endpoint that surfaces SDK errors (verification_ack, projects, regions, instance_types, database_versions, the verify_credentials path-resolution branches), the central /deploy endpoint that bubbles str(e) from deploy_on_rds / deploy_on_azure / deploy_on_google, and update_cloud_server which surfaces the str(e) from a failing db.session.commit — all of which are now covered.
Fix HTML-escapes every external/SDK exception string at the endpoint sink via a new shared sanitize_external_text helper (HTML escape with control-character strip), promoted out of the psycopg3 driver into web/pgadmin/utils/text_sanitize.py. The Cloud Wizard frontend additionally renders its FormFooterMessage in plain-text mode for backend-derived strings, so the value is never parsed as HTML even if a future sink forgets the escape.
This issue affects pgAdmin 4: from 6.6 before 9.16.
CVSS Score
4.8
EPSS Score
0.001
Published
2026-06-19
Stored cross-site scripting in pgAdmin 4's error-rendering and plan-node-rendering paths. Text returned by a PostgreSQL server (ErrorResponse messages, including object names quoted back inside relation-does-not-exist errors and inside EXPLAIN Recheck Cond / Exact Heap Blocks fields) was passed verbatim through html-react-parser at every user-facing sink — the notifier toasts, FormFooterMessage / FormInput help and error areas, FormNote, ModalProvider AlertContent and confirmDelete, ToolErrorView, the Explain visualiser's NodeText panel, the SQL editor confirm dialogs, ConfirmSaveContent, PreferencesHelper modal alerts, and SelectThemes helper text. A PostgreSQL server an attacker controls — or any server returning attacker-influenced text such as a table or column name a low-privilege database user can create — could inject arbitrary HTML (including <iframe>) into the pgAdmin DOM the moment the victim's pgAdmin connected to that server or viewed an Explain plan that referenced the crafted object.
The injected iframe's srcdoc could fetch attacker-served JavaScript and, by writing to parent.location, redirect the victim's top-level pgAdmin browser tab to an attacker-controlled URL. Because the injection originates from inside pgAdmin's own interface, standard anti-clickjacking controls (X-Frame-Options, Content-Security-Policy: frame-ancestors) do not mitigate it. A phishing page rendered inside the legitimate pgAdmin window is indistinguishable from a genuine pgAdmin dialog.
Fix combines three complementary layers. (1) DOMPurify sanitisation is wrapped around every html-react-parser call site reachable from notifier, alert, form-error, Explain, and SQL-editor flows. (2) A new plain-text rendering contract — SafeMessage / SafeHtmlMessage components plus Notifier.errorText / alertText / warningText / infoText / successText helpers — is introduced; around fifty callers across browser, tools, dashboard, debugger, misc, llm, preferences, schema diff, and the SQL editor that previously interpolated backend-derived strings are migrated to the plain-text variants. (3) Backend HTML-escape is applied at the post-connection-SQL handler (execute_post_connection_sql) via a new sanitize_external_text helper, so third-party JSON consumers (audit logs, API clients) never receive raw markup either; the Explain plan-info renderer is also patched to _.escape Recheck Cond and Exact Heap Blocks at construction (matching every sibling field), giving defence in depth even before DOMPurify runs.
This issue affects pgAdmin 4: from 6.0 before 9.16.
CVSS Score
9.3
EPSS Score
0.002
Published
2026-06-19
Open redirect in pgAdmin 4's multi-factor authentication flow. The MFA validate and register endpoints honoured the user-supplied 'next' query/form parameter without confirming the target pointed back inside pgAdmin, so an authenticated victim who clicked /mfa/validate?next=<external> -- a link typically delivered by phishing -- would be sent to an attacker-controlled host directly out of the trusted auth flow.
The defect is a trusted-domain redirect, not a privilege bypass: the attacker gains no read/write access to pgAdmin or the victim's database, but the redirect launders the attacker's destination through pgAdmin's URL, which raises the success rate of credential-phishing follow-on against the victim.
Fix introduces a same-origin _is_safe_redirect_url helper and gates every MFA redirect that consumes user-supplied 'next' values through it. The helper allows only relative paths and absolute URLs whose scheme is http(s) and whose host matches the current request host; it rejects external hosts in absolute and protocol-relative form, non-http schemes (javascript:, data:, mailto:), userinfo tricks (http://localhost@attacker/), and backslash variants that some browsers normalize to forward slashes. Unsafe targets fall back to the internal browser index. A dedicated regression test exercises each accept/reject category and the original reporter PoC.
This issue affects pgAdmin 4: from 6.0 before 9.16.
CVSS Score
5.3
EPSS Score
0.002
Published
2026-06-19
SQL injection in pgAdmin 4's named restore point endpoint (POST /browser/server/restore_point/{gid}/{sid}). The user-supplied 'value' field was interpolated directly into the SQL string with str.format() instead of being passed as a bound parameter, allowing an authenticated pgAdmin user with a connected PostgreSQL session to inject additional statements through that endpoint.
The injected SQL executes under the database role the user is already authenticated as. The defect does not cross a privilege boundary -- the user already has direct SQL access to that role through the Query Tool -- so the attacker gains no capability beyond what their database role already grants them. The marginal impact accounts for the fact that the injection path is not the documented SQL-execution interface, so a deployment that gates the Query Tool at the application layer could see SQL executed through a path it did not anticipate.
Fix passes the restore point name as a bound parameter and schema-qualifies the function call as pg_catalog.pg_create_restore_point so a non-default search_path on the connection cannot redirect the call to a shadow definition. A regression test asserts the value arrives as a bound parameter and not spliced into the SQL string.
This issue affects pgAdmin 4: from 1.0 before 9.16.
CVSS Score
5.3
EPSS Score
0.003
Published
2026-06-19
SQL injection in pgAdmin 4 across every dialog template that renders ``COMMENT ON ... IS '<description>'`` for a user-supplied description field. The Jinja templates for Domains (and their constraints), Foreign Tables, Languages, and Event Triggers, plus the Views OID-lookup query, interpolated the description directly inside a single-quoted SQL literal -- ``'{{ data.description }}'`` -- instead of passing it through the ``qtLiteral`` escape filter. An authenticated pgAdmin user with permission to create or alter the affected object types could submit a description containing an apostrophe, break out of the literal and chain arbitrary SQL. The injected SQL runs under the PostgreSQL role the user is already authenticated as; for a connected role with ``COPY ... TO/FROM PROGRAM`` (typically PostgreSQL superuser), this chains to OS command execution on the PostgreSQL host. The defect does not cross a privilege boundary -- the user already has direct SQL access to that role through pgAdmin's Query Tool -- so the attacker gains no capability beyond what their database role already grants. The marginal impact captures bypass of any application-layer Query Tool gating an operator may have configured.
The defect was originally reported against the Domain Dialog ``description`` field; a code-wide audit identified sixteen sites of the same pattern across the templates listed above. The same review also surfaced ten related sinks in the pgstattuple/pgstatindex stats templates -- ``pgstattuple('{{schema}}.{{table}}')`` and the matching pgstatindex shape -- where ``qtIdent`` escapes embedded double quotes inside the identifier but not apostrophes, so a user with CREATE privilege on a schema could plant a table or index named ``foo'bar`` and a later stats viewer would render an unbalanced literal.
Fix is layered:
1. Sites: replace every ``'{{ x.description }}'`` with ``{{ x.description|qtLiteral(conn) }}`` (no surrounding quotes -- the filter wraps the value in escaped quotes itself). Plumb ``conn=self.conn`` through every ``render_template`` call that loads one of these templates. Also corrects a ``{ % elif`` Jinja typo in the foreign-table schema diff (dead branch). Rewrite the ten pgstattuple/pgstatindex stats sites to address the relation via OID + ``::oid::regclass`` cast (e.g. ``pgstattuple({{ tid }}::oid::regclass)``), eliminating the embedded literal-call form entirely so that bug-class can no longer recur there.
2. Driver hardening: ``qtLiteral`` (in ``utils/driver/psycopg3/__init__.py``) used to silently return the raw unescaped value when its ``conn`` argument was falsy. It now raises ``ValueError`` -- surfacing the entire bug class going forward. The change immediately uncovered eight latent plumbing bugs (in ``schemas/__init__.py``, ``schemas/functions/__init__.py``, ``schemas/tables/utils.py``, ``foreign_servers/__init__.py``, and seven sites in ``roles/__init__.py``) -- all fixed as part of this patch. The inner ``except`` block that swallowed adapter-level failures and returned the raw value is also removed, so unadaptable inputs raise instead of leaking unescaped values.
3. Regression tests: a per-template behavioural test renders each previously-vulnerable template with an apostrophe-injection payload and asserts the escaped fragment is present and the vulnerable fragment absent; a lint test walks every ``*.sql`` template flagging any ``'{{ ... }}'`` single-quote-wrapped interpolation against an explicit allowlist; unit tests cover the new qtLiteral fail-fast and inner-except raise paths.
This issue affects pgAdmin 4: from 1.0 before 9.16.
CVSS Score
8.7
EPSS Score
0.007
Published
2026-06-19
Two state-mutating endpoints in pgAdmin 4's SQL Editor blueprint -- DELETE /sqleditor/close/<trans_id> and POST /sqleditor/initialize/sqleditor/update_connection/<sgid>/<sid>/<did> -- were the only routes in the module missing the @pga_login_required decorator. Both reach a pickle.loads sink on session['gridData'][<trans_id>]['command_obj']: the close endpoint via close_sqleditor_session(), and update_sqleditor_connection via check_transaction_status(). In server mode these endpoints were reachable without any authenticated pgAdmin session.
The defect is a missing-authentication-on-critical-function (CWE-306) wrapper around a deserialization-of-untrusted-data sink (CWE-502). Exploiting it for remote code execution requires the attacker to also forge a server-side session file whose gridData entry contains a malicious pickle payload, which in turn requires both (a) knowledge of pgAdmin's Flask SECRET_KEY (no chain to leak it is described here -- the attacker must already possess it) and (b) write access to pgAdmin's sessions/ directory on the host. Neither precondition is granted by this defect on its own. When those preconditions are met from another channel (misconfigured deployment, prior compromise, leaked configuration), the missing auth gate is the final hop that turns an existing partial compromise into unauthenticated code execution in the pgAdmin process -- and, by extension, on the host under whatever account runs pgAdmin.
Fix is a one-line @pga_login_required decorator on each of the two endpoints, matching the convention used by every other route in the module. The is_authenticated / MFA chain now runs before the trans_id is dereferenced, so an unauthenticated request is rejected before reaching the deserialization path.
The defect is server-mode only. In DESKTOP mode pgAdmin's before_request hook re-authenticates DESKTOP_USER on every request, so no endpoint can be exercised in an unauthenticated state and no auth decorator (or its absence) is meaningful. The accompanying regression test mirrors the attacker's path -- harvests an X-pgA-CSRFToken from GET /login and replays it against both endpoints -- and self-skips outside server mode for that reason; it is wired into the existing server-mode CI workflow alongside the data-isolation tests.
This issue affects pgAdmin 4: from 6.9 before 9.16.
CVSS Score
9.5
EPSS Score
0.009
Published
2026-06-19
Symbolic-link path traversal (CWE-61, CWE-22) in pgAdmin 4 File Manager.
check_access_permission used os.path.abspath, which resolves '..' but does not resolve symbolic links, while the subsequent kernel write follows symlinks. An authenticated user could plant a symbolic link inside their own storage directory pointing outside it and induce pgAdmin to write to any path reachable by the pgAdmin process.
Fix switches the access check to os.path.realpath for both source and destination, and adds an _open_upload_target helper that opens the target with O_NOFOLLOW (mode 0o600) to close the leaf-component TOCTOU between the access check and the open. File mode is hardened from 0o644 to 0o600.
This issue affects pgAdmin 4: before 9.15.
CVSS Score
7.2
EPSS Score
0.004
Published
2026-05-11
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