CVE-2026-17351

CRITICAL

pgAdmin 4 9.13-9.17 AI Assistant - Read-Only Transaction Bypass

Title source: manual
STIX 2.1

Exploitation Summary

EIP tracks 1 public exploit for CVE-2026-17351. PoCs published by Hunt-Benito.

AI-analyzed exploit summary This repository demonstrates a SQL injection bypass (CVE-2026-17351) in pgAdmin 4's AI Assistant via a lexer differential between sqlparse and PostgreSQL's string literal parsing. The exploit allows arbitrary SQL execution despite read-only validation by smuggling multiple statements in a single string literal.

Description

The fix for CVE-2026-12045 in pgAdmin 4 9.16 required the LLM-supplied query passed to the AI Assistant's execute_sql_query tool to parse, via sqlparse, as exactly one non-transaction-control statement before running it inside a BEGIN TRANSACTION READ ONLY wrapper. sqlparse's string-literal lexing can disagree with PostgreSQL's own parser: under standard_conforming_strings = on (PostgreSQL's default since 9.1), a backslash immediately before a quote is an ordinary character to PostgreSQL, but sqlparse treats it as escaping the quote. A payload such as SELECT '\';COMMIT;CREATE TABLE pwn(x int);SELECT 1 --' therefore parses as a single SELECT to sqlparse's validator, while PostgreSQL executes it as four statements: the smuggled COMMIT ends the wrapping read-only transaction, and the trailing ROLLBACK becomes a no-op. This reintroduces the same write/RCE bypass CVE-2026-12045 was meant to close, reachable via the same indirect prompt-injection delivery (an attacker plants the payload in any object the AI Assistant may read; the LLM emits it as a tool call). An initial candidate fix ran the query with psycopg's execute(..., prepare=True), intending to force PostgreSQL's own Parse step (extended query protocol) to reject multi-statement text regardless of sqlparse's classification. This candidate fix does not work as submitted: psycopg3's PrepareManager silently ignores the prepare argument whenever the connection's prepare_threshold is None, which is pgAdmin's default for every server connection (the per-server "Prepare threshold" field is blank unless an administrator explicitly sets it) -- psycopg3 falls back to the simple query protocol, the same multi-statement-capable path the bypass exploits, so the candidate fix closes nothing on any real-world default configuration. The corrected fix sets conn.prepare_threshold = 0 directly on the dedicated, single-use read-only connection the AI Assistant tool opens, structurally forcing the extended query protocol independent of any server-level configuration. Verified against a live PostgreSQL 18 instance: the payload executes successfully under the prepare_threshold=None (default) behavior, and is rejected with "cannot insert multiple commands into a prepared statement" once prepare_threshold=0 is set on that connection. This issue affects pgAdmin 4: from 9.13 before 9.17.

Exploits (1)

github WORKING POC
by Hunt-Benito · pythonpoc
https://github.com/Hunt-Benito/pgadmin-ai-assistant-sql-injection-cve-2026-17351-lexer-differential-bypass

This repository demonstrates a SQL injection bypass (CVE-2026-17351) in pgAdmin 4's AI Assistant via a lexer differential between sqlparse and PostgreSQL's string literal parsing. The exploit allows arbitrary SQL execution despite read-only validation by smuggling multiple statements in a single string literal.

Classification
Working Poc 99%
Attack Type
Sqli
Complexity
Moderate
Reliability
Reliable
Target: pgAdmin 4 versions 9.13 through 9.16
Auth required
Prerequisites: Access to a pgAdmin 4 instance with AI Assistant enabled · Ability to plant malicious SQL in database objects (e.g., column comments) · PostgreSQL with standard_conforming_strings=on (default)
mistral-large-3 · analyzed Jul 31, 2026 Full analysis →

Scores

CVSS v3 9.0
EPSS 0.0038
EPSS Percentile 30.9%
Attack Vector NETWORK
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:R/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H

CISA SSVC

Vulnrichment
Exploitation none
Automatable no
Technical Impact total

Details

CWE
CWE-115 CWE-89
Status published
Products (2)
pgadmin/pgadmin_4 9.13 - 9.17
pgadmin.org/pgAdmin 4 9.13 - 9.17
Published Jul 31, 2026
Tracked Since Jul 31, 2026