What’s Vulnerable › Vulnerabilities

CVE-2026-17603: Nexus Repository 3 - HikariCP connectionInitSql Injection RCE via DataStore Configuration API

• Severity: high (CVSS 8.8 v3.1)
• Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
• EPSS: 0.9% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
• Public exploit or detection template: none known
• Published: 2026-08-07 · updated 2026-10-23
• Weakness: CWE-94

Description

Nexus Repository 3 did not sufficiently restrict which HikariCP connection-pool properties could be set through the DataStore configuration API. A user holding the nx-datastores-update permission could set the connectionInitSql property to execute arbitrary SQL against the configured database on every new connection. On the default H2 database backend, this could be leveraged to achieve remote code execution as the Nexus process user.

Affected products

• Sonatype Nexus Repository 3: from 3.20.0 before 3.95.0 — fixed in 3.95.0

How to fix

Upgrade to a fixed version: Sonatype Nexus Repository 3 3.95.0. Check the vendor advisory for mitigations.

References

• https://help.sonatype.com/en/sonatype-nexus-repository-3-95-0-release-notes.html
• https://support.sonatype.com/hc/en-us/articles/53890127489427/

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