GHSA-hgx2-28f8-6g2r — kratos
HIGHGHSA-hgx2-28f8-6g2r 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 GHSA-hgx2-28f8-6g2r.
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-hgx2-28f8-6g2r 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
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 |
Detection & 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 GHSA-hgx2-28f8-6g2r 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-hgx2-28f8-6g2r can be triaged on real exposure rather than presence alone.
Tailored to GHSA-hgx2-28f8-6g2r. 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-hgx2-28f8-6g2r in your dependencies?
O3 Security finds GHSA-hgx2-28f8-6g2r across Go dependencies, including transitive ones, and its impact-aware SCA ranks findings by whether your code actually calls the vulnerable path.