GHSA-fg4q-ccq8-3r5q is a medium-severity (CVSS 5.9) SQL Injection vulnerability in NHibernate. A fix is available for NHibernate — see the affected versions and patch details below.
NHibernate SQL injection vulnerability in discriminator mappings, static fields referenced in HQL, and some utilities
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 GHSA-fg4q-ccq8-3r5q.
EPSS Exploitation Probability
EPSS (Exploit Prediction Scoring System) is a daily probability model maintained by FIRST.org. It estimates the likelihood a CVE will be exploited in production environments within the next 30 days, derived from real-world threat intelligence signals.
How urgent is this, really
GHSA-fg4q-ccq8-3r5q plotted by exploitation likelihood (EPSS) against impact (CVSS). The shaded corner — EPSS 50%+ and CVSS 7.0+ — is where this CVE doesn't sit, though severity or exploitability alone can still warrant action.
Where this sits among everything scored
Of 377,166 CVEs with a current EPSS score, this one falls in the < 10% band (highlighted). Real counts from FIRST.org, not a sample — log-scaled since the landscape is heavily right-skewed.
Real-World Exposure
NHibernate.NETNHibernateReal-time download stats are indexed for npm and PyPI packages. This vulnerability affects NuGet packages — download data is not available via public APIs for these ecosystems.
Description
Impact
A SQL injection vulnerability exists in some types implementing ILiteralType.ObjectToSQLString. Callers of these methods are exposed to the vulnerability, which includes:
- Mappings using inheritance with discriminator values:
- The discriminator value could be written in the mapping in a way exploiting the vulnerability of the associated discriminator type, if that type is among the vulnerable ones.
- The current culture settings for formatting the discriminator value type could be altered in a way resulting into SQL injections with the discriminator values.
- HQL queries referencing a static field of the application.
- Users of the
SqlInsertBuilderandSqlUpdateBuilderutilities, calling theirAddColumnoverload taking a literal value. These overloads are unused by NHibernate but could be used by users referencing directly these utilities. - Any direct use of the
ObjectToSQLStringmethods for building SQL queries on the user side.
Patches
Releases 5.4.9 and 5.5.2.
Workarounds
- Ensure the application does not use the features listed above.
- For discriminator usages, ensure the discriminator values in the mappings do not contain quotes for string discriminators. Furthermore, for types which
ToStringconversion can be altered to include SQL injections through adequate hacking of the current culture settings, either change for another type, or ensure the used values cannot allow culture exploits, or ensure the application performs sanity checks of the current culture settings. Types sensitive to culture include integers for negative values, dates, times and datetimes, floats and decimals.
References
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| .NETNuGet | NHibernate | all versions | 5.4.9dotnet add package NHibernate --version 5.4.9 |
| .NETNuGet | NHibernate | ≥ 5.5.0&&< 5.5.2 | 5.5.2dotnet add package NHibernate --version 5.5.2 |
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for NHibernate, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update NHibernate to 5.4.9 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms GHSA-fg4q-ccq8-3r5q is resolved across your whole dependency graph.
Workarounds
If you can't upgrade right away: gate or disable the affected feature, validate untrusted input at the boundary, and avoid passing attacker-controlled data into the vulnerable path. O3's runtime protection blocks exploitation in production as an interim safeguard until the upgrade lands.
How O3 protects you
O3 Security's impact-aware SCA analyses which vulnerable code paths your application actually calls, so a match like GHSA-fg4q-ccq8-3r5q can be triaged on real exposure rather than presence alone.
Tailored to GHSA-fg4q-ccq8-3r5q. Runtime protection reduces exposure until a permanent patch is applied and verified — it complements patching, it doesn't replace it.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is GHSA-fg4q-ccq8-3r5q in your dependencies?
O3 Security finds GHSA-fg4q-ccq8-3r5q across NuGet dependencies, including transitive ones, and its impact-aware SCA ranks findings by whether your code actually calls the vulnerable path.