Bug 2568348 (CVE-2026-116242)

Summary: CVE-2026-116242 pgadmin4: pgadmin4: Unauthorized access via service account SSH credential reuse in server mode
Product: [Other] Security Response Reporter: OSIDB Bzimport <bzimport>
Component: vulnerabilityAssignee: Product Security DevOps Team <prodsec-dev>
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Priority: high    
Version: unspecifiedKeywords: Security
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Hardware: All   
OS: Linux   
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A flaw was found in pgadmin4. When running in server mode, the application improperly falls back to using the host operating system service account's Secure Shell (SSH) configuration, private keys, and authentication agent when establishing SSH tunnels. An authenticated user can exploit this vulnerability by configuring an SSH tunnel without providing valid personal credentials. Successful exploitation allows the user to establish unauthorized connections to remote systems by impersonating the pgAdmin service account.
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Bug Depends On: 2568975    
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Description OSIDB Bzimport 2026-11-06 16:22:02 UTC
pgAdmin 4 opens SSH tunnels with the sshtunnel library but gave it neither host_pkey_directories nor ssh_config_file, so it always loaded the unencrypted private keys in ~/.ssh of the operating-system account running pgAdmin, read that account's ~/.ssh/config (IdentityFile, User, HostName, ProxyCommand) for the tunnel host, and could use its ssh-agent. In server mode any user could therefore configure a tunnel to a host that accepts the service account's key, with no credentials of their own or with an identity file that did not exist in their storage, and reach it as that account.

The fix makes tunnels in server mode use only the identity file or password the user configured: the service account's keys, configuration and agent are no longer used, and an identity file that cannot be found in the user's storage is reported instead of falling back to ~/.ssh. Desktop mode is unchanged.

This issue affects pgAdmin 4: before 9.19.