CVE-2026-17566: pgadmin.org pgAdmin 4 vulnerability

1. In CISA KEV: not seen
2. Exploited (reported): not seen
3. Scanning observed: not seen
4. Proof of concept public1 public GitHub repository (unverified), listed by PoC-in-GitHub4 Aug
5. Not established: not seen

DescriptionNVD

pgAdmin 4's Import/Export Data tool builds a psql \copy (...) command line by interpolating a user-supplied SQL query into a Jinja template and passing the rendered line to psql via --command. To stop an attacker from breaking out of the (...) wrapper, create_import_export_job() (route POST /import_export/job/<sid>, gated only by the ordinary, commonly-granted tools_import_export_data permission) validated the query with a hand-written parenthesis-balance checker, _is_query_parens_balanced(). That checker always treated a backslash before a single quote (\') as escaping the quote, i.e. as if standard_conforming_strings were off. PostgreSQL has defaulted standard_conforming_strings to on since 9.1 (2010), the default on every PostgreSQL version pgAdmin 4 currently supports (13-18); under that default psql's own \copy tokenizer treats \ as an ordinary character, so a single quote immediately after it closes the string literal. A query such as SELECT 'a\') TO PROGRAM 'echo pwned' x' was therefore accepted as "balanced" by pgAdmin's checker (which believed the ) was still inside the string), while psql, run through the actual rendered command line, closes the string at that point and treats the following ) as the end of the wrapping \copy (...) subquery, exposing an attacker-chosen TO PROGRAM '<command>' clause that psql executes via popen() -- independent of a subsequent syntax error later on the same line. This is the same class of bug as CVE-2025-12762/CVE-2025-13780 (RCE via psql meta-command/COPY injection during PLAIN-format dump restore), reached through an independently written defense in a different module (Import/Export Data rather than Restore) that had its own, different logic bug (inverted backslash-escape semantics rather than a BOM-defeated regex anchor). The fix rejects any backslash inside a single-quoted string in the query outright, rather than picking one of the two possible psql interpretations.

Exploitation

Unlikely (under 1%). EPSS under 1%, or no score yet.

CISA KEV

Not listed

Public check

No public nuclei template

Weakness

OS Command Injection · Command and Code Injection

Vendor

pgadmin.org

Published

July 2026

Band

Unlikely (under 1%), July 2026

1. 4 Aug
   PoC-in-GitHub lists 1 public GitHub repository (unverified) PoC-in-GitHub

• NVD entrynvd.nist.gov
• Vendor advisorygithub.com
• CVE recordcve.org
• Weakness CWE-78cwe.mitre.org