Critical

OpenRefine Remote Code execution in project import with mysql jdbc url attack

  • Disclosed: 12.09.2023
  • Updated: 11.10.2026 13:20

Summary

An remote Code exec vulnerability allows any unauthenticated user to exec code on the server.

Details

Hi,Team, i find openrefine support to import data from database,When use mysql jdbc to connect to database,It is vulnerable to jdbc url attacks,for example,unauthenticated attacker can get rce on the server through the mysql userializable If the mysql-connector-java version used on the server side is less than 8.20. In order for the server to enable deserialization we need to set the autoDeserialize and queryInterceptors parameters in the connection string,As same with https://github.com/OpenRefine/OpenRefine/security/advisories/GHSA-qqh2-wvmv-h72m, since the concatenation string is a direct concatenation, it is possible to inject the required parameters after the other parameters. image

And there is a commons-beanutils dependency library on the server side, which contains an RCE-capable deserialization exploit chain

PoC

env: centos 7 openrefine 3.7.4 jdk11 mysql-connector-java version 8.14.0 you can use the tool https://github.com/4ra1n/mysql-fake-server to running a malicious mysql server.
for example use the CB 1.9 Gadget to exec command touch /tmp/hacked.
image
set the user to base64ZGVzZXJfQ0JfdG91Y2ggL3RtcC9oYWNrZWQ=(touch /tmp/hacked base64 encode),dataBaseName to test?autoDeserialize=true&queryInterceptors=com.mysql.cj.jdbc.interceptors.ServerStatusDiffInterceptor#.
image image
command touch /tmp/hacked is executed.
image

Impact

An remote Code exec vulnerability allows any unauthenticated user to exec code on the server.

Affected software

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PlatformPackageVulnerable versionsFixed in
Java / Kotlin (Maven) org.openrefine:database < 3.7.5 3.7.5

References

CVSS score 9.8/10
CVSS vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
Weakness (CWE)
CWE-89
Platform
Java / Kotlin (Maven)
Package
org.openrefine:database
Disclosed
12.09.2023
Updated
11.10.2026 13:20

Sources and licenses

OSV / GitHub Advisory Database - GHSA-p3r5-x3hr-gpg5 - CC BY 4.0

Vulnerability history: org.openrefine:database

All published vulnerabilities of this package (Java / Kotlin (Maven)), newest first. Shows whether this is a one-off slip or a package that needs watching.

Total entries
4
First → latest
09.2023 10.2024
Without a fix
0
Exploited in attacks
0

Severity breakdown

  • Critical 1
  • High 3

Disclosures per year

  1. 2023: 2
  2. 2024: 2
  3. 2025: 0
  4. 2026: 0
  1. High · 7.3 CVE-2024-23833 < 3.7.8 3.7.8
  2. OpenRefine Remote Code execution in project import with mysql jdbc url attack this entry
    Critical · 9.8 CVE-2023-41887 < 3.7.5 3.7.5

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