CVE-2023-42454 — sqlpage
CRITICALCVE-2023-42454 is a critical-severity (CVSS 10) Information Exposure vulnerability in sqlpage. 1 public exploit or proof-of-concept reference is indexed, so weaponization risk is real. A fix is available for sqlpage — see the affected versions and patch details below.
SQLpage vulnerable to public exposure of database credentials
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-2023-42454.
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
sqlpageReal-time download stats are indexed for npm and PyPI packages. This vulnerability affects crates.io packages — download data is not available via public APIs for these ecosystems.
Description
Impact
If
- you are using a SQLPage version older than v0.11.1
- your SQLPage instance is exposed publicly
- the database connection string is specified in the
sqlpage/sqlpage.jsonconfiguration file (not in an environment variable) - the web_root is the current working directory (the default)
- your database is exposed publicly
then an attacker could retrieve the database connection information from SQLPage and use it to connect to your database directly.
Patches
Upgrade to v0.11.1 as soon as possible.
Workarounds
If you cannot upgrade immediately:
- Using an environment variable instead of the configuration file to specify the database connection string prevents exposing it on vulnerable versions.
- Using a different web root (that is not a parent of the SQLPage configuration directory) fixes the issue.
- And in any case, you should generally avoid exposing your database publicly
References
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🦀crates.io | sqlpage | all versions | 0.11.1cargo update -p sqlpage --precise 0.11.1 |
Affected Products
sqlpagelovasoaResearch use only. For defensive security, authorized penetration testing, and academic research only. Never execute exploit code against systems without explicit written authorization.
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for sqlpage, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update sqlpage to 0.11.1 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2023-42454 is resolved across your whole dependency graph.
Workarounds
Assume what was exposed is already known: rotate any credential, token or key that the affected component could return, restrict the endpoint to callers that genuinely need it, and strip sensitive fields from responses and error output at the boundary rather than relying on the client not to read them.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2023-42454 in your dependencies?
Find it across crates.io, including transitive dependencies.