CVE-2026-12046

June 19, 2026, 12:16 a.m.

9.5
Critical

Description

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.

Product(s) Impacted

Vendor Product Versions
Pgadmin
  • Pgadmin 4
  • 6.9-9.16

Weaknesses

Common security weaknesses mapped to this vulnerability.

CWE-306
Missing Authentication for Critical Function
The product does not perform any authentication for functionality that requires a provable user identity or consumes a significant amount of resources.

*CPE(s)

Affected systems and software identified for this CVE.

Type Vendor Product Version Update Edition Language Software Edition Target Software Target Hardware Other Information
a pgadmin pgadmin_4 6.9-9.16 / / / / / / /

CVSS Score

9.5 / 10

CVSS Data - 4.0

  • Attack Vector: NETWORK
  • Attack Complexity: LOW
  • Attack Requirements: PRESENT
  • Privileges Required: NONE
  • User Interaction: NONE
  • Scope:
  • Confidentiality Impact: HIGH
  • Integrity Impact: HIGH
  • Availability Impact: HIGH
  • Exploit Maturity: NOT_DEFINED
  • CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:P/PR:N/UI:N/VC:H/VI:H/VA:H/SC:H/SI:H/SA:H/E:X/CR:X/IR:X/AR:X/MAV:X/MAC:X/MAT:X/MPR:X/MUI:X/MVC:X/MVI:X/MVA:X/MSC:X/MSI:X/MSA:X/S:X/AU:X/R:X/V:X/RE:X/U:X

    View Vector String

Timeline

Published: June 19, 2026, 12:16 a.m.
Last Modified: June 19, 2026, 12:16 a.m.

Status : Received

CVE has been recently published to the CVE List and has been received by the NVD.

More info

Source

f86ef6dc-4d3a-42ad-8f28-e6d5547a5007

*Disclaimer: Some vulnerabilities do not have an associated CPE. To enhance the data, we use AI to infer CPEs based on CVE details. This is an automated process and might not always be accurate.