Read-only transaction bypass in pgAdmin 4 AI Assistant
CVE-2026-12045 is a critical vulnerability in the pgAdmin 4 AI Assistant affecting versions 9.13 through before 9.16. The flaw is in the assistant's execute_sql_query tool, which attempted to constrain LLM-generated SQL by wrapping it in BEGIN TRANSACTION READ ONLY. However, the implementation forwarded the LLM-supplied SQL to the database driver without enforcing that it be exactly one statement or that it begin with a read-only verb. As a result, a malicious multi-statement payload beginning with transaction-control statements such as COMMIT, END, ROLLBACK, or ABORT could terminate the read-only transaction and cause subsequent statements to execute in autocommit mode. The attack is delivered via prompt injection: if an attacker can place crafted content into database objects the AI Assistant may inspect, such as rows, column values, or comments, the LLM can be induced to emit the malicious SQL as a tool call. Successful exploitation allows arbitrary SQL execution with the privileges of the pgAdmin user's database role.
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A vulnerability in pgAdmin 4's AI Assistant feature that allows bypass of read-only transaction restrictions and could potentially lead to remote code execution via PostgreSQL COPY TO PROGRAM when elevated privileges are available.
A read-only transaction bypass in pgAdmin 4 AI Assistant that allows arbitrary SQL execution via prompt injection against LLM-generated SQL handling, potentially leading to unauthorized data modification and, in high-privilege configurations, remote code execution on the database server host.
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