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...
9.17Exploitability
AV:NAC:LAT:NPR:LUI:PVulnerable System
VC:HVI:HVA:HSubsequent System
SC:HSI:HSA:H9.4/CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:L/UI:P/VC:H/VI:H/VA:H/SC:H/SI:H/SA:HInjection
Other