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Improper Neutralization of Special Elements used in an SQL Command ('SQL Injection')

CVE-2020-5257

High
8.1/10

Summary

In Administrate (rubygem) before version 0.13.0, when sorting by attributes on a dashboard, the direction parameter was not validated before being interpolated into the SQL query. This could present a SQL injection if the attacker were able to modify the `direction` parameter and bypass ActiveRecord SQL protections. Whilst this does have a high-impact, to exploit this you need access to the Administrate dashboards, which we would expect to be behind authentication. This is patched in wersion 0.13.0.

  • LOW
  • NETWORK
  • HIGH
  • UNCHANGED
  • NONE
  • LOW
  • HIGH
  • NONE

CWE-89 - SQL Injection

Structured Query Language (SQL) injection attacks are one of the most common types of vulnerabilities. They exploit weaknesses in vulnerable applications to gain unauthorized access to backend databases. This often occurs when an attacker enters unexpected SQL syntax in an input field. The resulting SQL statement behaves in the background in an unintended manner, which allows the possibility of unauthorized data retrieval, data modification, execution of database administration operations, and execution of commands on the operating system.

References

Advisory Timeline

  • Published