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Fencer Intel
medium 6.5

CVE-2026-116250 json

pgAdmin 4: Files opened in a storage directory follow a symbolic link, hard link or FIFO planted after the containment check

published 10d ago modified 11h ago also EUVD-2026-114391

cvss
6.5
version 3.1, CNA
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
0.1%
EPSS 0.1% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 0%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

In server mode pgAdmin 4 validates a path a user gives for a file in their storage directory with check_access_permission() and then opened it by name. Several places opened it with a plain open() or handed the path to a utility that opened it later: the servers.json export and import and the import file listing, and the files given to pg_dump, pg_dumpall, pg_restore and psql by Backup, Restore and Import/Export Data. A symbolic link swapped in at the file or at any parent directory between the check and the open redirected the operation outside the storage directory, so a file could be written, overwritten or read, or loaded into a table, as the operating-system account running pgAdmin. A hard link to an outside file, which O_NOFOLLOW does not detect, and a FIFO, which could hang a request, had the same effect. CVE-2026-86861 fixed this for the File Manager's save_file; these were the remaining paths.

Exploitation requires creating such a link or FIFO inside the user's storage directory. pgAdmin offers no way to do so, and the per-user storage directories belong to the pgAdmin account, so this requires write access to the storage backend as a different operating-system user, for example a shared or network-mounted storage directory, and winning the race.

The fix opens each file by walking down from the storage directory one component at a time with O_NOFOLLOW, accepting only a regular file with one link, and passes the utilities the open descriptor (/dev/fd/N) on Linux. Error messages no longer include the server path.

This issue affects pgAdmin 4: before 9.19.

Patch / fix

  • pgadmin.org pgAdmin 4 9.19

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Vendor advisories

What the vendors themselves say about their products: affected, fixed or not affected, and what to do.

red hat product security vex CVE-2026-116250 updated cvss 6.5

pgadmin4: pgAdmin 4: Arbitrary file read and write via symlink race condition

  • Red Hat All currently supported Red Hat products
    not affected: vulnerable code not present

Red Hat CSAF VEX © Red Hat, Inc., from https://security.access.redhat.com/data/csaf/v2/vex/; changed: reduced to product statuses and remediations. CC BY 4.0 · csaf

CISA SSVC

Exploitation
none
Automatable
no
Technical impact
total
Assessed
3d ago

Exploit prediction

0.10% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 0% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-09).

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
CNA 3.1 6.5 CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:L
CNA 4.0 7.3 CVSS:4.0/AV:L/AC:H/AT:P/PR:L/UI:N/VC:H/VI:H/VA:L/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N
CNA 4.0 7.3 CVSS:4.0/AV:L/AC:H/AT:P/PR:L/UI:N/VC:H/VI:H/VA:L/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N/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

Affected products

  • pgadmin.org pgAdmin 4

Classification

Weakness
  • CWE-367 Time-of-check Time-of-use (TOCTOU) Race Condition
  • CWE-59 Improper Link Resolution Before File Access

References

Sources

Fencer Intel keeps one entry per vulnerability: the CVE id wins, then GHSA, and records that alias each other are merged, except that two CVEs always keep separate entries. The same data is available as JSON.

CPEs and fixed versions use Anchore's correction of NVD's data: Added CPE configurations because not yet analyzed by NVD.