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PostgreSQLDatabase / datastore

CVE-2018-16850

CRITICAL · 9.8 CVSS v3.1 Published 2018-11-13
Fix available
A fix is available. Upgrade to 10.6 / 11.1 or later.
See remediation →
100/100
Remediation priority · Urgent
Remotely reachable No privileges Zero-click Patch available

Official description Straight from the sourceThe vendor's or NVD's own wording, published unedited. Authoritative, but often terse — it says what broke, rarely what to do.

NVD · unedited
postgresql before versions 11.1, 10.6 is vulnerable to a to SQL injection in pg_upgrade and pg_dump via CREATE TRIGGER ... REFERENCING. Using a purpose-crafted trigger definition, an attacker can cause arbitrary SQL statements to run, with superuser privileges.

Technical summary Written by usOur analysis, written from the advisory, the CVSS vector and the affected-version data. It adds context the advisory leaves out, and never invents facts that are not in the source.

dbcve analysis
How this class of weakness works · CWE-89

User input is woven into a database query, letting an attacker rewrite the query's logic. From there they can read, alter, or destroy data — frequently the entire database. The reliable fix is parameterised queries (prepared statements), so input is always treated as data and never as SQL.

General guidance for the sql injection class — the official description and references above are authoritative for this specific CVE. Want a bespoke review and a reviewed fix? Ask our team →

Affected products & versions What the vendor confirmedThe version ranges the vendor confirmed as vulnerable. If your version sits inside a range here, treat yourself as exposed until you have upgraded.

NVD · CPE data
PostgreSQLDatabase / datastore
Affected:>= 10.0, < 10.6>= 11.0, < 11.1
Enterprise LinuxOperating system
Affected:= 7.0= 7.4= 7.5= 7.6
Ubuntu LinuxOperating system
Affected:= 18.04= 18.10

CVSS breakdown How the score is builtThe industry scoring standard. It rates how the flaw is reached, what it takes to exploit, and what an attacker gains — the score is derived from those, not the other way round.

From the vector
Attack vector
Network
Complexity
Low
Privileges
None
User interaction
None
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality
High
Integrity
High
Availability
High

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

Remediation Closing itWhat it takes to close this. Where a vendor fix exists we point at it; where none exists we say so plainly, and can build one. Effort estimates are scoped from the advisory, not from your codebase.

dbcve · scoped
Upgrade available Upgrade to 10.6 / 11.1 or later
Fixed in 10.611.1
Vendor patch bugzilla.redhat.com →
Recommended fix High confidence

PostgreSQL 10.6 or later for the 10.x branch; PostgreSQL 11.1 or later for the 11.x branch

  1. 1. Identify the current PostgreSQL version by running: psql --version or SELECT version();
  2. 2. Back up all PostgreSQL databases using pg_dump or pg_dumpall before upgrading
  3. 3. For systems running PostgreSQL 10.x: upgrade to PostgreSQL 10.6 or later (preferably the latest 10.x release)
  4. 4. For systems running PostgreSQL 11.0: upgrade to PostgreSQL 11.1 or later (preferably the latest 11.x release)
  5. 5. On RHEL/CentOS systems: run 'yum update postgresql' or 'dnf update postgresql' to apply the patched packages
  6. 6. On Ubuntu systems: run 'apt-get update && apt-get install postgresql' to install the patched packages
  7. 7. Verify the new version is running: psql --version
  8. 8. Test application connectivity and functionality against the upgraded database
Caveat Major version upgrades (e.g., 10.x to 11.x) may introduce breaking changes; review PostgreSQL 11 release notes before upgrading from 10.x

Generated from the published advisory — verify against the referenced sources before acting.

We can perform the upgrade in your staging environment and verify nothing breaks — typical engagement from $2,300. Get the upgrade done

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References Go to the primary sourcePrimary sources — vendor advisories, patches and trackers. Where our summary and a reference disagree, the reference wins.

Primary sources

Practitioner notes

Contributed

Peer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-2018-16850 in production — separate from our analysis above.

No notes yet

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What this is

A place for practitioners to share what actually worked: a mitigation you’ve tested, a configuration change, a version- or environment-specific caveat, or a link to a verified patch. The most useful notes rise to the top as peers upvote them, so the signal stays high.

What belongs here
  • Verified mitigations, workarounds, and config changes
  • Version or environment caveats, and links to real fixes
  • No weaponised exploit code, or anything meant to cause harm
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