CVE-2026-23696

CriticalPublic PoC

Published: 07 April 2026

Published

07 April 2026

Modified

08 April 2026

KEV Added

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Patch

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CVSS Score 9.9 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H

EPSS Score 0.0008 22.6th percentile

Risk Priority 20 60% EPSS · 20% KEV · 20% CVSS

Summary

CVE-2026-23696 is a critical-severity SQL Injection (CWE-89) vulnerability. Its CVSS base score is 9.9 (Critical).

Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique Exploit Public-Facing Application (T1190); ranked at the 22.6th percentile by exploit likelihood (below the median); it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog; a public proof-of-concept is referenced.

The strongest mitigations our analysis identified are NIST 800-53 SI-10 (Information Input Validation) and SI-2 (Flaw Remediation).

Threat & Defense at a Glance

What attackers do: exploitation maps to Exploit Public-Facing Application (T1190). What defenders deploy: see the NIST 800-53 controls recommended below.

Threat & Defense Details

Mitigating Controls (NIST 800-53 r5)AI

SI-10 Information Input Validation good match

prevent

Directly prevents the SQL injection vulnerability by requiring validation of untrusted inputs such as the owner parameter to block malicious SQL payloads.

SI-2 Flaw Remediation good match

prevent

Ensures timely identification, reporting, and correction of the SQL injection flaw through patching, as demonstrated by the fix in Windmill v1.603.3.

SI-4 System Monitoring partial match

detect

Facilitates detection of SQL injection exploitation via monitoring for anomalous database queries and unauthorized access to sensitive data like JWT secrets.

MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise TechniquesAI

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.

attack.mitre.org →

Why these techniques?

SQL injection in public-facing Windmill web app directly enables remote exploitation for data access, token forgery, and RCE via T1190.

Confidence: HIGH · MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise v18.1

NVD Description

Windmill CE and EE versions 1.276.0 through 1.603.2 contain an SQL injection vulnerability in the folder ownership management functionality that allows authenticated attackers to inject SQL through the owner parameter. An attacker can use the injection to read sensitive data…

such as the JWT signing secret and administrative user identifiers, forge an administrative token, and then execute arbitrary code via the workflow execution endpoints.

Deeper analysisAI

CVE-2026-23696 is an SQL injection vulnerability affecting Windmill Community Edition (CE) and Enterprise Edition (EE) versions from 1.276.0 through 1.603.2. The flaw resides in the folder ownership management functionality, where authenticated attackers can inject malicious SQL payloads via the owner parameter. Assigned a CVSS v3.1 base score of 9.9 (AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H) and mapped to CWE-89, it was published on April 7, 2026.

Attackers with low-privilege authenticated access can exploit this vulnerability remotely with low complexity and no user interaction required. By injecting SQL, they can extract sensitive data such as the JWT signing secret and administrative user identifiers from the database. With this information, attackers can forge an administrative JWT token, escalate privileges, and achieve remote code execution by leveraging Windmill's workflow execution endpoints.

Mitigation is available through the patch committed at https://github.com/windmill-labs/windmill/commit/942fb629210ebb287f48467d1535ffde3a3eeafe and included in Windmill release v1.603.3 (https://github.com/windmill-labs/windmill/releases/tag/v1.603.3). Additional resources include a proof-of-concept exploit repository at https://github.com/Chocapikk/Windfall and a detailed analysis at https://chocapikk.com/posts/2026/windfall-nextcloud-flow-windmill-rce/, with a related Nextcloud Flow app release noted at https://apps.nextcloud.com/apps/flow/releases.