Software Engineering Institute

PostgreSQL Database

PostgreSQL is an open source database management system.

The Problem

There is a vulnerability in the way that PostgreSQL recovers from errors. According to the release notes for PostgreSQL 8.1.3:

Due to inadequate validity checking, a user could exploit the special case that SET ROLE normally uses to restore the previous role setting after an error. This allowed ordinary users to acquire superuser status, for example.
Considerations

This issue only exists in PostgreSQL versions 8.1.0 to 8.1.2. An attacker must have valid credentials to exploit this vulnerability.

An authenticated attacker may be able to gain elevated privileges on a PostgreSQL database.

Upgrade

This issue has been corrected in PostgreSQL version 8.1.3.