Description
PyAthena prior to 3.35.4 contains a sql injection vulnerability that allows unauthenticated attackers to inject arbitrary SQL by exploiting improper quote-escaping in DefaultParameterFormatter.format(), which routes DELETE and CTAS statements to the _escape_hive function that backslash-escapes single quotes rather than doubling them. Because Athena and Trino do not treat backslashes as escape characters inside string literals, attacker-supplied input such as a single quote followed by SQL syntax causes the parser to terminate the string literal prematurely, enabling data exfiltration via UNION SELECT, execution of destructive statements, and attacker-controlled CTAS destination and content.
Affected products
| Vendor | Product | Affected | Fixed |
|---|---|---|---|
| laughingman7743 | PyAthena | ≤ 3.35.3 | 3.35.4 |
Public exploits
Exploit or proof-of-concept code for this vulnerability is publicly available, which lowers the bar for attackers. Treat it as a reason to patch sooner.
GitHub 1 repository
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rahulreddykarne/CVE-2026-65321-pyathena ★ 0 · Aug 3, 2026
SQL injection in PyAthena via DefaultParameterFormatter (CVE-2026-65321)
Sources: PoC-in-GitHub, Metasploit Framework, Exploit-DB — updated daily. Only links are listed; no exploit code is hosted here.
References
- Product Repository product
- GitHub Security Advisory (GHSA-xwj5-g6cv-4r5c) vendor-advisory
- Patch Commit patch
- https://www.vulncheck.com/advisories/pyathena-sql-injection-via-defaultparameterformatter-delete-ctas third-party-advisory
- https://rahulkarne.com/#/cve/CVE-2026-65321 technical-description
- https://github.com/rahulreddykarne/CVE-2026-65321-pyathena related