GitHub Advisoryadvisory · Go
GHSA-rxhg-vcww-2mpw Fleet: ORDER BY column injection on activity list endpoints
LOW
Official page ↗
- Ecosystem
- Go
- Packages
- github.com/fleetdm/fleet/v4
- Severity
- Low
- CVSS vector
- CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:N/A:N
- Weaknesses
- CWE-89
- Reviewed
- 2026-08-20
Affected packages
• Go github.com/fleetdm/fleet/v4: < 4.89.0 → fixed in 4.89.0
Description
Summary
An authenticated user with read access to Activity could influence the `ORDER BY` clause of the activity list endpoints by supplying an arbitrary sort column:
• `GET /api/v1/fleet/activities` (`ListActivities`)
• `GET /api/v1/fleet/hosts/{id}/activities` (`ListHostPastActivities`)
This originated from the deprecated cursor-pagination helper (`appendListOptionsWithCursorToSQL`), which interpolated the caller-supplied order key into SQL without an allowlist. The original report's `node_key` extraction scenario (`/api/v1/fleet/labels/{id}/hosts`) was remediated separately in #44385; these two activity endpoints were the residual call sites, neither of which joins the `hosts` table, so `node_key` was never reachable through them.
Impact
Read-only. Because the order key was interpolated, an authenticated user with Activity read could sort by columns not otherwise returned in these responses. The exposure was bounded to columns on `activity_past` (e.g. `details` on `/api/v1/fleet/activities`, which is not in that endpoint's SELECT; host-only activities are already excluded by `WHERE host_only = false`). There is no privilege escalation, write access, or reachability of `node_key` or other host-join columns through these endpoints.
Remediation
The deprecated helper was removed from the codebase. Both endpoints now pass the caller-supplied sort column through `SanitizeColumn`, which strips all characters except `[\w-.]` and backtick-quotes each identifier segment. This closes the injection vector: separators, whitespace, parentheses, and quotes cannot survive sanitization, so an expression-based `ORDER BY` oracle is not constructable.
Affected versions
`< fleet-v4.89.0`. Fixed in `fleet-v4.89.0`.
Credit
Thanks to @axel-corsiez for the report.
Related
Weakness · CWE (1)
- CWE-89 Improper Neutralization of Special Elements used in an SQL Command weakness