CVE-2025-71392 — surrealdb
CVE-2025-71392 is a CWE-77 vulnerability in surrealdb. A fix is available for surrealdb — see the affected versions and patch details below.
SurrealDB before 2.2.2 SurrealQL Injection via export
Exploitation Status
No confirmed exploitation observed yet
- 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-2025-71392.
EPSS Exploitation Probability
Probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, from FIRST.org EPSS.
Real-World Exposure
surrealdb🦀surrealdb🦀surrealdbReal-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
The SurrealDB command-line tool allows exporting databases through the export command. It was discovered that table or field names are not properly sanitized in exports, leading to a SurrealQL injection when the backup is reimported.
For the injection to occur, an authenticated System User with OWNER or EDITOR roles needs to create tables or fields with malicious names containing SurrealQL, subsequently exported using the export operation
The attacker could achieve a privilege escalation and root level access to the SurrealDB instance if a higher privileged user subsequently performs the import operation.
Furthermore, applications using SurrealDB that allow its users to define custom fields or tables are at risk of a universal second order SurrealQL injection, even if query parameters are properly sanitized.
This issue was discovered and patched during an code audit and penetration test of SurrealDB by cure53, the severity defined within cure53's preliminary finding is Critical, matched by our CVSS v4 assessment.
Impact
This attack can be used to perform privilege escalation and complete takeover (root access) of the SurrealDB instance, as well as being able to perform SurrealQL injection attacks against co-tenanted applications where SurrealDB is used as a shared backend for multiple applications.
Patches
A patch has been created that addresses the issue by fixing the bugs in the exporter which failed to escape some characters properly.
- Versions 2.0.5, 2.1.5, 2.2.2 and later are not affected by this issue.
Workarounds
For SurrealDB users that are unable to upgrade, users that are looking to perform import operations must manually inspect the exported data for injected statements, prior to importing.
Resources
SurrealDB Documentation - Export SurrealDB Documentation - Import SurrealDB Documentation - Authentication
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🦀crates.io | surrealdb | ≥ 2.2.0&&< 2.2.2 | 2.2.2cargo update -p surrealdb --precise 2.2.2 |
| 🦀crates.io | surrealdb | ≥ 2.1.0&&< 2.1.5 | 2.1.5cargo update -p surrealdb --precise 2.1.5 |
| 🦀crates.io | surrealdb | all versions | 2.0.5cargo update -p surrealdb --precise 2.0.5 |
Affected Products
surrealdbsurrealdbDetection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for surrealdb, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update surrealdb to 2.2.2 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2025-71392 is resolved across your whole dependency graph.
Workarounds
Stop passing untrusted input into the interpreter or shell: call the affected binary with an argument array rather than a composed command string, reject anything outside a strict allowlist of expected values, and run the component under an account that cannot reach beyond the work it legitimately does.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2025-71392 in your dependencies?
Find it across crates.io, including transitive dependencies.