What’s Vulnerable › Vulnerabilities

CVE-2026-48114: Metacat has an unauthenticated SQL injection vulnerability

• Severity: critical (CVSS 9.8 v3.1)
• Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
• EPSS: 0.4% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
• Public exploit or detection template: none known
• Published: 2026-06-15 · updated 2026-10-25
• Weakness: CWE-89

Description

Metacat is data repository software that helps researchers preserve, share, and discover data. Versions 2.0.0 and and above contain an unauthenticated SQL injection in the /harvesterRegistration endpoint. HarvesterRegistration.dbInsert() builds an INSERT against HARVEST_SITE_SCHEDULE via string concatenation, using a quoteString() helper that performs raw single-quote wrapping without escaping. Three request parameters reach the sink: unit, contactEmail, and documentListURL. The servlet does not verify a real LDAP identity. Allowing the vulnerable insert to proceed. Since the PostgreSQL backend permits stacked queries via Statement.executeUpdate(), this vulnerability allows full read/write/execute access in the Metacat database context. The vulnerability was remediated in Metacat 3.0.0.

Affected products

• NCEAS metacat: from 2.0.0, < 3.0.0

References

• https://github.com/NCEAS/metacat/commit/820d595309b399fdbdf4983bd1b1dd795773472a
• https://github.com/NCEAS/metacat/security/advisories/GHSA-wrc6-rc34-hrcg

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