CVE-2026-33503 — kratos
HIGHCVE-2026-33503 is a high-severity (CVSS 7.2) SQL Injection vulnerability in github.com/ory/kratos. A fix is available for github.com/ory/kratos — see the affected versions and patch details below.
Ory Kratos has a SQL injection via forged pagination tokens
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-2026-33503.
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
github.com/ory/kratosReal-time download stats are indexed for npm and PyPI packages. This vulnerability affects Go packages — download data is not available via public APIs for these ecosystems.
Description
Description
The ListCourierMessages Admin API in Ory Kratos is vulnerable to SQL injection due to flaws in its pagination implementation.
Pagination tokens are encrypted using the secret configured in secrets.pagination. An attacker who knows this secret can craft their own tokens, including malicious tokens that lead to SQL injection. If this configuration value is not set, Kratos falls back to a default pagination encryption secret. Because this default value is publicly known, attackers can generate valid and malicious pagination tokens manually for installations where this secret is not set.
Preconditions
This issue can be exploited when the following conditions are met:
- ListCourierMessages API is directly or indirectly accessible to the attacker
- The attacker can pass a raw pagination token to the affected API
- The configuration value
secrets.paginationis not set or known to the attacker
Impact
An attacker can execute arbitrary SQL queries through forged pagination tokens.
Mitigation
As a first line of defense, immediately configure a custom value for secrets.pagination by generating a cryptographically secure random secret, for example:
openssl rand -base64 32
Next, upgrade Kratos to a fixed version as soon as possible.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🐹Go | github.com/ory/kratos | all versions | 1.3.1-0.20260320110106-9d7085948039go get github.com/ory/kratos@v1.3.1-0.20260320110106-9d7085948039 |
Affected Products
kratosoryDetection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for github.com/ory/kratos, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update github.com/ory/kratos to 1.3.1-0.20260320110106-9d7085948039 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2026-33503 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-2026-33503 in your dependencies?
Find it across Go, including transitive dependencies.