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OpenAdvisories
High · 7.0 CVE-2026-7818 EUVD-2026-29086GHSA-4rhg-h8f2-v4jmPYSEC-2026-2865

pgAdmin 4: Unsafe deserialization (CWE-502) in file-backed session manager leads to remote code execution

Published May 11, 2026 · Updated May 11, 2026 · Assigned by PostgreSQL

Description

Deserialization of untrusted data (CWE-502) in pgAdmin 4 FileBackedSessionManager.

The session manager performed unsafe deserialization of session-file contents (using Python's standard object-serialization module) before performing any HMAC integrity check. Any file dropped into the sessions directory was deserialized unconditionally. An authenticated user with write access to the sessions directory (whether by misconfiguration or in combination with another path-traversal flaw) could plant a crafted serialized payload to achieve operating-system level remote code execution under the pgAdmin process identity.

Fix prepends a 64-byte hex SHA-256 HMAC over the session body, computed with SECRET_KEY, and verifies it via hmac.compare_digest before any deserialization. The check is raised (rather than asserted) on empty SECRET_KEY so it is not stripped under -O.

This issue affects pgAdmin 4: before 9.15.

Affected products

VendorProductAffectedFixed
pgadmin.org pgAdmin 4 < 9.15 9.15

Fixed in Linux distributions

Distributions backport fixes, so the version that fixes this vulnerability differs per release — upgrade to at least the version shown. From the distributions' security trackers and advisories.

ReleasePackageFixed inAdvisory
openSUSE Tumbleweed pgadmin4 9.17-1.1 openSUSE-SU-2026:11508-1

Affected packages

EcosystemPackageAffectedFixedRecord
PyPI pgadmin4 < 9.15 9.15 GHSA-4rhg-h8f2-v4jm

Advisories 2

References