CVE-2026-44521 — elfinder
HIGHCVE-2026-44521 is a high-severity (CVSS 8.8) SQL Injection vulnerability in studio-42/elfinder. A fix is available for studio-42/elfinder — see the affected versions and patch details below.
elFinder: SQL Injection MySQL Volume Driver (elFinderVolumeMySQL)
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-2026-44521.
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
studio-42/elfinderReal-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
Summary
An authenticated SQL injection vulnerability in the elFinder MySQL volume driver (elFinderVolumeMySQL) allows any logged-in user, including users with read-only access to the affected volume, to inject SQL through a crafted target file hash. Successful exploitation can lead to unauthorized data disclosure and denial of service.
This vulnerability only affects installations configured to use the MySQL volume driver. Installations using the default LocalFileSystem driver are not affected.
Description
A vulnerability in elFinder's MySQL volume driver (elFinderVolumeMySQL) allows authenticated SQL injection through a crafted file hash passed via the target parameter.
The issue is caused by two behaviors working together:
- File hashes are decoded without validating that the decoded value is a valid MySQL object identifier.
- The decoded value is then used in MySQL driver queries, including
cacheDir(),_joinPath(),_stat(), and_fopen().
Because the MySQL storage schema uses numeric id and parent_id values, an authenticated user can supply a crafted hash that alters the intended SQL query logic. Successful exploitation can lead to unauthorized data disclosure and denial of service. The extent of impact depends on the privileges granted to the configured MySQL account.
This vulnerability only affects installations configured to use the MySQL volume driver. Installations using the default LocalFileSystem driver are not affected.
Impact
An authenticated user, including a user with read-only access to the affected volume, can exploit this issue to:
- disclose data accessible to the configured MySQL account, including file contents stored by the driver and database metadata
- trigger denial of service through expensive or unexpectedly broad query results that can lead to excessive memory consumption
The severity of data exposure depends on the privileges granted to the configured MySQL account.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🐘Packagist | studio-42/elfinder | all versions | 2.1.68composer require studio-42/elfinder:^2.1.68 |
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for studio-42/elfinder, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update studio-42/elfinder to 2.1.68 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2026-44521 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-2026-44521 in your dependencies?
Find it across Packagist, including transitive dependencies.