CVE-2026-12044
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 base score ≥ 7.0
ATT&CK techniques
3Techniques this CVE enables - linked via CWECAPECATT&CK. High◆ = named directly in ATT&CK or Nuclei templates.
▤ Build a SIEM detection for these techniquesCAPEC attack patterns
10Attack patterns this CVE enables - the bridge from weakness to ATT&CK technique.