CVE-2026-17566: 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 vi
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. This is intentionally conservative: because the corre
Details
Original advisory: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-17566
Exploitation outlook
EPSS (FIRST.org) estimates each CVE’s probability of exploitation in the next 30 days — here is the CSIRTS.com read on those numbers.
- Low exploitation riskCVE-2026-175660.43% 30-day exploitation probability — currently an unlikely target, but scores change as exploit code circulates. Riskier than 35% of all scored CVEs.
Referenced CVEs
| CVE | CSIRTS overview | External |
|---|---|---|
| CVE-2026-17566 | coverage & exploitation status | NVD · CVE.org |
Recent advisories for pgAdmin
A cluster of recent advisories against the same product widens the attack surface — attackers routinely chain freshly published CVEs on one product, so review these together.
- criticalCVE-2026-17351: The fix for CVE-2026-12045 in pgAdmin 4 9.16 required the LLM-supplied query passed to the AI …nvd · 2026-07-31
- mediumCVE-2026-17350: The per-tool permission system (custom roles / role-based tool permissions, introduced in pgAd…nvd · 2026-07-31
- criticalCVE-2026-17349: /misc/workspace/adhoc_connect_server, part of the Workspaces feature introduced in pgAdmin 4 9…nvd · 2026-07-31
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- highCVE-2026-17347: The MASTER_PASSWORD_HOOK setting, introduced in pgAdmin 4 7.2, lets an administrator configure…nvd · 2026-07-31
- highCVE-2026-17346: The fix for CVE-2026-12044 in pgAdmin 4 9.16 hardened qtLiteral and switched sixteen COMMENT O…nvd · 2026-07-31
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