Summary

The connector encodes and decodes all character data assuming the connection character set is UTF-8. A server can change charactersetclient mid-session to a non-UTF-8 charset, after which the driver and server interpret the same bytes under different encodings, causing silent data corruption and a client/server charset-confusion mismatch.

Details

The driver encodes and decodes all character data on the assumption that the connection character set is UTF-8. The server can, however, announce a change of charactersetclient mid-session through the OK-packet session-state-tracking mechanism, for example via a SET NAMES … run by a stored routine or trigger, by server configuration, or by a hostile server.

If the new charset is not UTF-8, the driver continues to read and write UTF-8 while the server interprets the same bytes under a different encoding. The result is silent data corruption and a client/server charset-confusion mismatch. Charset confusion of this kind is also the primitive that can defeat byte-wise quoting/escaping when client and server disagree on a multi-byte encoding.

Am I affected?

You are affected if you use mariadb Connector/R2DBC (org.mariadb:r2dbc-mariadb) below 1.4.1 and a connection can be steered, by a hostile or man-in-the-middle server, or by server-side state such as a stored routine, trigger, or configuration — to switch charactersetclient to a non-UTF-8 value mid-session.

Impact

Silent data corruption and a client/server encoding mismatch once the connection's charset diverges from UTF-8. Because the mismatch undermines the assumption that quoting/escaping operates on UTF-8 bytes, it belongs to the charset-confusion class that can lead to SQL injection.

Patches

Fixed in 1.4.1. Once the connection is fully initialized, any subsequent charset change to a value that is not utf8 / utf8mb3 / utf8mb4 is rejected: the driver raises R2dbcNonTransientResourceException (SQLState 08000) and closes the connection rather than continuing to exchange data under a mismatched encoding. Upgrade to 1.4.1 or later.

Workarounds

There is no reliable application-level workaround; upgrade to 1.4.1 or later.

Credit

Reported by Yalguun Tumenkhuu (@fg0x0).