Cyber Resilience

CVE-2026-12045

RCE in Pgadmin 4 9.13 – 9.16

Published
19 June 2026
Modified
01 July 2026
Patch / advisory
CVSS Score v4 9.4
Click a component to see what it means
Raw vectorCVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:L/UI:P/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
EPSS Score 0.0048 39th percentile
Risk Priority 70 floored blend · peak EPSS

Summary

CVE-2026-12045 is a critical-severity Command Injection (CWE-77) vulnerability in Pgadmin Pgadmin 4. Its CVSS base score is 9.4 (Critical).

Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique Command and Scripting Interpreter (T1059); ranked at the 39th percentile by exploit likelihood (below the median); it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.

This vulnerability is AI-related — categorised as Enterprise AI Assistants; in the LLM/Generative AI Risks risk domain.

The strongest mitigations our analysis identified map to SA-11 (Developer Testing and Evaluation) and SI-10 (Information Input Validation) — see the control section below for these in your framework.

OWASP Top 10 for Web (2025)

EU & UK References

Vulnerability Data

Read-only transaction bypass in the pgAdmin 4 AI Assistant allows an attacker who can influence database content that the assistant reads to execute arbitrary SQL with the privileges of the pgAdmin user's database role. The AI Assistant's execute_sql_query tool runs…

more

LLM-generated SQL inside a BEGIN TRANSACTION READ ONLY wrapper to prevent data modification. The LLM-supplied query was forwarded to the database driver without restriction to a single statement or to read-only verbs, so a multi-statement payload beginning with COMMIT, END, ROLLBACK, or ABORT terminated the read-only transaction and ran subsequent statements in autocommit mode. The trailing ROLLBACK then had no effect. Delivery is via prompt injection: an attacker who can write content into any object the AI Assistant may inspect (a row, a column value, a comment) can cause the LLM to emit the multi-statement payload as a tool call. With ordinary write privileges on the pgAdmin user's role the attacker can perform unauthorised data modification. When the pgAdmin user's role is a PostgreSQL superuser or holds pg_execute_server_program, the chain extends to remote code execution on the database server host via COPY ... TO PROGRAM. Fix validates the LLM-supplied query up front: it must parse to exactly one non-empty / non-comment statement whose leading real token (after stripping whitespace, comments, and punctuation) is one of SELECT, WITH, EXPLAIN, SHOW, VALUES, or TABLE. Transaction-control verbs, DML, DDL, CALL, COPY, DO, SET/RESET, and everything else are rejected before any database work happens. PostgreSQL's READ ONLY mode continues to backstop data-modifying CTEs, EXPLAIN ANALYZE on writes, and volatile side effects. This issue affects pgAdmin 4: from 9.13 before 9.16.

CWE(s)

AI Security AnalysisAI

AI Category
Enterprise AI Assistants
Risk Domain
LLM/Generative AI Risks
OWASP Top 10 for LLMs 2025
None mapped
AI-specific weaknesses CR
  • CWE-1426 — LLM output (SQL) reaches DB sink without validation; prompt injection delivers payload.
Mapped by Cyber Resilience · not in NVD. Poisoning and extraction cases are routed to MITRE ATLAS instead of a synthetic CWE.
Classification Reason
Matched keywords: ai, ai, llm, llm, prompt injection, ai, llm, llm

Related Threats

MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise Techniques

T1059 Command and Scripting Interpreter Execution
Adversaries may abuse command and script interpreters to execute commands, scripts, or binaries.
T1190 Exploit Public-Facing Application Initial Access
Adversaries may attempt to exploit a weakness in an Internet-facing host or system to initially access a network.
T1059.001 PowerShell Execution
Adversaries may abuse PowerShell commands and scripts for execution.
T1059.003 Windows Command Shell Execution
Adversaries may abuse the Windows command shell for execution.
T1059.004 Unix Shell Execution
Adversaries may abuse Unix shell commands and scripts for execution.
T1059.008 Network Device CLI Execution
Adversaries may abuse scripting or built-in command line interpreters (CLI) on network devices to execute malicious command and payloads.
Derived from this CVE’s CWE(s) via the direct CWE→ATT&CK cross-walk.

CVEs Like This One

CVE-2024-3116Same product: Pgadmin Pgadmin 4
CVE-2026-33111Shared CWE-77
CVE-2026-42824Shared CWE-77
CVE-2025-66032Shared CWE-77
CVE-2024-48139Shared CWE-77
CVE-2026-42895Shared CWE-77
CVE-2025-53773Shared CWE-77
CVE-2024-48141Shared CWE-77
CVE-2025-59252Shared CWE-77
CVE-2026-24299Shared CWE-77

Affected Assets

pgadmin
pgadmin 4
9.13 — 9.16

Mitigating Controls

Control response

Prevent
Stop it (NIST 800-53)

Detect
Catch it (NIST detect / respond)

Harden
Shrink the surface (DISA STIG)

Validate
Prove the fix (OWASP ASVS)
  • V1.2.3
  • V1.2.5
  • V1.2.8
  • V1.2.9

Mitigating Controls (NIST 800-53 r5) AI

Developer testing and evaluation can discover command-construction flaws before deployment.

Input validation directly stops construction of commands from untrusted data containing special elements.

Secure engineering principles include proper neutralization and safe command construction practices.

System monitoring can identify attempted SQLi exploitation via anomalous queries after the weakness exists.

Mitigating Controls (NIST CSF 2.0) AI

Derived directly from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry via our AI-authored CWE→CSF cross-walk (authority under review) — links open the control.

PR.PS-06 mostly match
prevents

Secure SDLC practices directly require input validation and neutralization that prevent command injection.

DE.CM-09 partial match
prevents

Runtime monitoring of software and data can detect anomalous command execution resulting from injection.

ID.RA-01 partial match
prevents

Identifying recorded vulnerabilities enables remediation of command-injection flaws before exploitation.

PR.AT-02 partial match
prevents

Training raises developer awareness of SQLi risks and can reduce introduction likelihood (partial) but removes none of the actual coding flaw's risk by itself since technical neutralization is still required.

Mitigating Controls (ISO/IEC 27001:2022 Annex A) AI

Derived directly from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry via our AI-authored CWE→ISO cross-walk (authority under review) — links open the control.

prevents

Secure coding standards require proper escaping and parameterization of commands, directly eliminating CWE-77.

finds

Security testing in development catches command-injection vulnerabilities before release.

prevents

Early warnings and shared best-practice information help organizations apply the latest remediation techniques against SQL-injection vulnerabilities.

prevents

Threat-intelligence feeds that surface new SQL-injection campaigns enable rapid updates to query-construction defenses and detection signatures before exploitation occurs.

prevents

Secure development life cycle mandates input validation and command construction practices that directly prevent command injection.

prevents

Application security requirements explicitly call for controls against injection flaws including command injection.

References