CVE intelligence and bounded remediation
CVE-2020-5257 — Thoughtbot Administrate security vulnerability
In Administrate (rubygem) before version 0.13.0, when sorting by attributes on a dashboard, the direction parameter was not validated before being interpolated into the SQL query. This could present a SQL injection if the attacker were able to modify the `direction` parameter and bypass ActiveRecord SQL protections. Whilst this does have a high-impact, to exploit this you need access to the Administrate dashboards, which we would expect to be behind authentication. This is patched in wersion 0.13.0.
- Severity
- High
- CVSS
- 8.1 (3.1)
- Published
- 2020-03-13
- CISA KEV
- Not currently listed
- Ecosystem
- software/application
- Weaknesses
- CWE-943, CWE-89
Affected products
- thoughtbot / administrate
Matched remediation archetype
SQL and data-query injection
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Check exposure
- Trace request, message, file, and stored values into SQL, ORM query fragments, filters, sort expressions, and other data-query languages.
- Inventory database roles, reachable schemas, multi-tenant boundaries, and whether stacked or administrative operations are enabled.
- Check both direct queries and second-order use of previously stored values.
Remediate safely
- Use parameterized queries or safe query builders for all values; map identifiers and operators through explicit allowlists.
- Remove raw query concatenation and give the application account only the tables and operations it requires.
- Update affected data-access components and add regression tests for query structure preservation with inert edge-case inputs.
Authoritative sources
Complete CVE record and remediation plan
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