CVE-2026-12046
CriticalCVSS 9.0Exploitation Probability (EPSS)
Low risk49th percentile - higher than 49% of all known CVEs
Summary
In pgAdmin 4 versions 6.9 through 9.15, two SQL Editor endpoints lack authentication decorators, allowing unauthenticated attackers to trigger pickle deserialization from server sessions. Exploitation requires additional preconditions (knowledge of SECRET_KEY and write access to sessions directory) to achieve remote code execution.
Risk Assessment
The risk is unauthenticated access to a pickle deserialization sink, which combined with other vulnerabilities or misconfigurations could lead to full compromise of the pgAdmin process and host system.
Recommendation
Upgrade pgAdmin 4 to version 9.16 or later immediately, which adds the @pga_login_required decorator to both vulnerable endpoints.
Other vulnerabilities in pgAdmin 4
See all- CVE-2026-7819High
There is a path traversal vulnerability using symbolic links in pgAdmin 4 File Manager. An authenticated user can create a symbolic link in their directory pointing outside of it, allowing data to be written to any path accessible by the pgAdmin process.
- CVE-2026-7818High
In pgAdmin 4 FileBackedSessionManager, there is a vulnerability to deserialization of untrusted data, which can lead to remote code execution at the operating system level. This issue arises from the lack of proper integrity checks before deserializing session file contents.
- CVE-2026-7816High
In pgAdmin 4 before version 9.15, there is an OS command injection vulnerability (CWE-78) in the Import/Export query export feature. An authenticated user could inject malicious commands, leading to arbitrary command execution on the pgAdmin server or arbitrary file writes.
- CVE-2026-7815High
A SQL injection vulnerability in the pgAdmin 4 Maintenance Tool allows an authenticated user with tools_maintenance permissions to execute arbitrary SQL commands on the PostgreSQL server. Exploiting this vulnerability could lead to privilege escalation and execution of operating system commands on the database host.
- CVE-2026-86863Critical
In pgAdmin 4, the 'webserver' authentication source was vulnerable because WebserverAuthentication.get_user() fell back to reading the username directly from inbound HTTP request headers when the WSGI/CGI environment lookup returned nothing. As a result, any client able to reach pgAdmin could supply that header itself and authenticate as any username, including an existing Administrator, without a password. The issue affects versions from 6.2 before 9.18 and only applies when 'webserver' is enabled in AUTHENTICATION_SOURCES.
- CVE-2026-17566Critical
A vulnerability in pgAdmin 4 allows remote code execution (RCE) via injection into the Import/Export Data tool. The validation function incorrectly handles backslashes in SQL strings, enabling bypass of protections and addition of a TO PROGRAM clause to psql commands.
- CVE-2026-17351Critical
A vulnerability in pgAdmin 4 (versions 9.13 to 9.16) allows bypassing the CVE-2026-12045 fix by injecting SQL queries into the AI assistant. An attacker can plant a malicious payload in an object read by the assistant, leading to execution of multiple SQL statements, including write or remote code execution.
- CVE-2026-17349Critical
In the adhoc_connect_server function in pgAdmin 4 9.0-9.16, when a non-owner user clones a server, all columns including credentials (passwords) and ownership flags are copied. This allows an attacker to take over the cloned server and use database passwords belonging to another user (e.g., an administrator).
- CVE-2026-12048Critical
A stored cross-site scripting vulnerability exists in pgAdmin 4 versions 6.0 through 9.15. Text returned by a PostgreSQL server (e.g., object names in errors or EXPLAIN fields) was passed verbatim to html-react-parser, allowing injection of arbitrary HTML, including iframes. An attacker controlling the server or creating a maliciously named object can hijack the victim's pgAdmin session.
- CVE-2026-12045Critical
A vulnerability in the pgAdmin 4 AI Assistant allows an attacker who can influence database content read by the assistant to execute arbitrary SQL with the privileges of the pgAdmin user's database role. The flaw stems from missing validation of LLM-generated queries, enabling bypass of read-only mode via injection of commands like COMMIT or ROLLBACK.
Original NVD description (English source)
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.
Vulnerability data from NVD (NIST) · CISA KEV · EPSS