CVE-2026-116246 pgAdmin 4: Server passwords are left in pgAdmin's process environment

Description

To pass a server's password to psql and to the utilities pgAdmin 4 runs as background processes, the server manager wrote it into pgAdmin's own process environment: as PGPASSWORD for the PSQL tool, and under a per-process variable for a utility. Nothing removed it afterwards. pgAdmin's environment is shared by every user's requests and copied into every process it starts, so in server mode another user's later PSQL session or utility inherited the password, and libpq used PGPASSWORD for any connection made without a password of its own, letting one user connect with another user's saved password. The fix puts the password only into the environment built for the process that needs it and starts psql with a copy of pgAdmin's environment instead of the environment itself. This issue affects pgAdmin 4: before 9.19.

Exploitable remotely over the network, with an ordinary account and if a user takes an action; an attacker can seriously compromise confidentiality, integrity or availability.

Attack vector

Network

Attack complexity

High

Privileges required

Low

Interaction

Required

Scope

Changed

Confidentiality

High

Integrity

Low

Availability

None

Affected products and versions