pgAdmin 4 up to 9.15 /sqleditor/close close_sqleditor_session session['gridData'] missing authentication

Summaryinfo

A vulnerability classified as critical was found in pgAdmin 4 up to 9.15. The impacted element is the function close_sqleditor_session of the file /sqleditor/close. Such manipulation of the argument session['gridData'] leads to missing authentication. This vulnerability is uniquely identified as CVE-2026-12046. The attack can be launched remotely. No exploit exists. Upgrading the affected component is advised.

Detailsinfo

A vulnerability was found in pgAdmin 4 up to 9.15. It has been rated as critical. Affected by this issue is the function close_sqleditor_session of the file /sqleditor/close. The manipulation of the argument session['gridData'] with an unknown input leads to a missing authentication vulnerability. Using CWE to declare the problem leads to CWE-306. The product does not perform any authentication for functionality that requires a provable user identity or consumes a significant amount of resources. Impacted is confidentiality, integrity, and availability. CVE summarizes:

Two state-mutating endpoints in pgAdmin 4's SQL Editor blueprint -- DELETE /sqleditor/close/ and POST /sqleditor/initialize/sqleditor/update_connection/// -- were the only routes in the module missing the @pga_login_required decorator. Both reach a pickle.loads sink on session['gridData'][]['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.

The advisory is available at github.com. This vulnerability is handled as CVE-2026-12046 since 06/11/2026. The exploitation is known to be easy. The attack may be launched remotely. No form of authentication is required for exploitation. Technical details are known, but there is no available exploit.

Upgrading to version 9.16 eliminates this vulnerability. Applying the patch f81433ae2f998f95bb17f27f53b4e99ebcc1df9c is able to eliminate this problem. The bugfix is ready for download at github.com. The best possible mitigation is suggested to be upgrading to the latest version.

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Productinfo

Name

• pgAdmin 4

Version

• 9.0
• 9.1
• 9.2
• 9.3
• 9.4
• 9.5
• 9.6
• 9.7
• 9.8
• 9.9
• 9.10
• 9.11
• 9.12
• 9.13
• 9.14
• 9.15

License

• open-source

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CPE 2.2info

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