CVE-2026-95819: College-Notes-Gallery SQL Injection Flaw

CVE-2026-95819 Overview

CVE-2026-95819 is a SQL injection vulnerability in the login.php file of anirbandutta9 College-Notes-Gallery. Attackers can manipulate the user and pass parameters to inject arbitrary SQL statements against the backend database. The flaw is remotely exploitable and requires no authentication or user interaction. The affected product uses a rolling release model, so the vendor does not publish discrete version identifiers for vulnerable or fixed builds. The maintainer was contacted before public disclosure but did not respond. Public exploit details have been disclosed, increasing the likelihood of opportunistic scanning and abuse against exposed instances.

Critical Impact
Unauthenticated remote attackers can inject SQL through the login form, enabling authentication bypass, data exfiltration, and potential tampering of stored notes and user records.

Affected Products

anirbandutta9 College-Notes-Gallery (rolling release)
Affected commit range up to 8c1cf3d98f30982d069c88ca172612c001eb39f6
Vulnerable component: login.php

Discovery Timeline

2026-09-22 - CVE-2026-95819 published to NVD
2026-09-23 - Last updated in NVD database

Technical Details for CVE-2026-95819

Vulnerability Analysis

The vulnerability resides in the authentication handler implemented in login.php. The application accepts the user and pass request parameters and incorporates them into a database query without proper sanitization or parameterization. This falls under the CWE-74 category (Improper Neutralization of Special Elements in Output Used by a Downstream Component). Because the injection point sits on a public-facing login form, an attacker requires no credentials or session context to trigger it. Successful exploitation can lead to authentication bypass, extraction of stored account data, and modification of application content. The product's rolling release model complicates version-based tracking, requiring administrators to monitor the upstream repository directly.

Root Cause

The root cause is unsafe concatenation of user-supplied user and pass values into a SQL statement executed by the login routine. The code does not enforce prepared statements, parameter binding, or input validation before the query runs.

Attack Vector

An unauthenticated remote attacker submits crafted values for the user or pass fields in a POST request to login.php. The injected payload alters the query logic, allowing the attacker to bypass authentication or exfiltrate rows from arbitrary tables through UNION-based or boolean-based techniques. See the GitHub CVE Issue Discussion and VulDB CVE 2026-95819 Details for additional technical context.

Detection Methods for CVE-2026-95819

Indicators of Compromise

Web server access logs showing POST requests to login.php containing SQL metacharacters such as ', --, UNION, OR 1=1, or SLEEP(.
Anomalous authentication success events for accounts that never previously logged in from the source IP.
Database error messages returned to clients when non-standard characters are submitted through the login form.

Detection Strategies

Deploy web application firewall (WAF) rules that flag SQL syntax within user and pass parameters submitted to login.php.
Correlate database query logs with web request logs to identify malformed or unusually long queries originating from the login endpoint.
Monitor for repeated failed logins followed by an unexpected successful login, which often signals blind SQL injection probing.

Monitoring Recommendations

Enable verbose logging on the PHP application and the underlying database to capture full query text for forensic review.
Alert on outbound data volume spikes from the web server that could indicate mass data extraction.
Track upstream commit activity on the College-Notes-Gallery repository to identify any patched revision beyond commit 8c1cf3d98f30982d069c88ca172612c001eb39f6.

How to Mitigate CVE-2026-95819

Immediate Actions Required

Restrict public exposure of the College-Notes-Gallery deployment by placing it behind a VPN or IP allowlist until a fix is available.
Deploy WAF signatures that block SQL injection patterns targeting the login.php endpoint.
Rotate database credentials and audit user accounts for signs of unauthorized modification.

Patch Information

No vendor patch has been published. The maintainer did not respond to disclosure attempts. Administrators must either fork the project and apply a manual fix, replacing string concatenation with parameterized queries (PDO prepared statements or mysqli_prepare), or discontinue use of the application. Track updates at the VulDB Vulnerability #408519 entry.

Workarounds

Modify login.php locally to use parameterized queries and cast inputs to expected types before database interaction.
Enforce server-side input validation that rejects non-alphanumeric characters in username fields.
Apply least-privilege principles to the database account used by the application, removing DDL and administrative rights.

bash

# Example ModSecurity rule to block SQLi patterns on the login endpoint
SecRule REQUEST_URI "@endsWith /login.php" \
    "id:1009581,phase:2,deny,status:403,log,\
    chain,msg:'Possible SQLi against College-Notes-Gallery login'"
    SecRule ARGS:user|ARGS:pass "@detectSQLi" "t:none"