CVE-2026-49997 is a medium-severity (CVSS 5.4) CWE-285 vulnerability in surrealdb. A fix is available for surrealdb — see the affected versions and patch details below.
SurrealDB: Edge PERMISSIONS FOR delete bypassed when a connected node is deleted
Exploitation Status
No confirmed exploitation observed yet
- 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-2026-49997.
EPSS Exploitation Probability
Probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, from FIRST.org EPSS.
How urgent is this, really
CVE-2026-49997 by exploitation likelihood (EPSS) against impact (CVSS). Outside the shaded patch-first corner.
Where this sits among everything scored
Of 380,066 CVEs with a current EPSS score, this one falls in the < 10% band (highlighted). Counts from FIRST.org, log-scaled.
Real-World Exposure
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
In SurrealDB, records can be connected as a graph: a RELATE statement creates an edge record between two node records. If either endpoint node is deleted, SurrealDB automatically removes the edge row to keep the graph consistent.
A user with permission to delete a node could also delete the edges connected to that node, even when the edge table's PERMISSIONS FOR delete clause should have stopped them.
The automatic edge removal (Document::purge_edges) ran with permissions disabled (opt.clone().with_perms(false)), so the edge table's PERMISSIONS FOR delete and PERMISSIONS FOR select clauses were never consulted. The removal step could also observe edge state that the edge's SELECT clause should have hidden.
Impact
What an attacker can do:
- Delete any edge connected to a node they can delete, regardless of the edge table's
PERMISSIONS FOR deleteclause. - Observe edge contents that
PERMISSIONS FOR selectshould have hidden, as a side effect of the same edge-removal step.
What it can't do:
- Delete nodes on tables they do not hold
DELETEon (the edge removal only runs from an authorised node delete). - Cross namespace or database isolation boundaries.
- Escalate to root or operator-level privileges.
Patches
Document::purge_edges now propagates the caller's permission context into the edge removal. Each connected edge DELETE is evaluated against the edge table's PERMISSIONS FOR delete clause, matching a direct DELETE.
Versions 3.1.0 and later are not affected.
Workarounds
- Restrict node
DELETEpermission to principals trusted to delete all connected edge records. - Use namespace or database isolation as the primary boundary where edge-level
PERMISSIONSis load-bearing for multi-tenant separation.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🦀crates.io | surrealdb | all versions | 3.1.0cargo update -p surrealdb --precise 3.1.0 |
Detection & 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 3.1.0 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2026-49997 is resolved across your whole dependency graph.
Workarounds
Put an independent control in front of the weakness: restrict the affected endpoint or interface to trusted networks, require an additional authentication factor or proxy-level check, and invalidate existing sessions and credentials in case the flaw has already been used.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2026-49997 in your dependencies?
Find it across crates.io, including transitive dependencies.