CVE-2023-22727 is a critical-severity (CVSS 9.8) SQL Injection vulnerability in cakephp/cakephp. A fix is available for cakephp/cakephp — see the affected versions and patch details below.
Database Query::offset() and limit() vulnerable to SQL injection in cakephp
Exploitation Status
No confirmed exploitation observed yet
- CISA assesses this as automatable — exploitation doesn’t require manual, per-target effort, which raises the odds of mass scanning and opportunistic attacks.
- A successful exploit gives an attacker total control of the affected component, not partial access.
- CISA’s own triage has not observed active exploitation or public proof-of-concept code for this CVE as of its last assessment.
Exploitation and automatability from CISA’s SSVC triage for CVE-2023-22727.
EPSS Exploitation Probability
Probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, from FIRST.org EPSS.
How urgent is this, really
Where this sits among everything scored
Real-World Exposure
cakephp/cakephp🐘cakephp/cakephp🐘cakephp/cakephp🐘cakephp/database🐘cakephp/database🐘cakephp/databaseReal-time download stats are indexed for npm and PyPI packages. This vulnerability affects Packagist packages — download data is not available via public APIs for these ecosystems.
Description
CakePHP is a development framework for PHP web apps. In affected versions the Cake\Database\Query::limit() and Cake\Database\Query::offset() methods are vulnerable to SQL injection if passed un-sanitized user request data. This issue has been fixed in 4.2.12, 4.3.11, 4.4.10. Users are advised to upgrade. Users unable to upgrade may mitigate this issue by using CakePHP's Pagination library. Manually validating or casting parameters to these methods will also mitigate the issue.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🐘Packagist | cakephp/cakephp | ≥ 4.2.0&&< 4.2.12 | 4.2.12composer require cakephp/cakephp:^4.2.12 |
| 🐘Packagist | cakephp/cakephp | ≥ 4.3.0&&< 4.3.11 | 4.3.11composer require cakephp/cakephp:^4.3.11 |
| 🐘Packagist | cakephp/cakephp | ≥ 4.4.0&&< 4.4.10 | 4.4.10composer require cakephp/cakephp:^4.4.10 |
| 🐘Packagist | cakephp/database | ≥ 4.2.0&&< 4.2.12 | 4.2.12composer require cakephp/database:^4.2.12 |
| 🐘Packagist | cakephp/database | ≥ 4.3.0&&< 4.3.11 | 4.3.11composer require cakephp/database:^4.3.11 |
| 🐘Packagist | cakephp/database | ≥ 4.4.0&&< 4.4.10 | 4.4.10composer require cakephp/database:^4.4.10 |
Affected Products
cakephpcakephpDetection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for cakephp/cakephp, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update cakephp/cakephp to 4.2.12 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2023-22727 is resolved across your whole dependency graph.
Workarounds
Until you can upgrade, make sure every query built from user input uses parameterised statements or a prepared-statement API rather than string concatenation, and reduce the database account's privileges so an injected query cannot read or alter data beyond what the feature needs.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2023-22727 in your dependencies?
Find it across Packagist, including transitive dependencies.