Executive brief
Emlog is an open-source website building and content management system. A critical security flaw in the way the system handles article creation and updates allows an attacker to send malicious commands to the website's database. If exploited, this could lead to the complete theft of sensitive user data, unauthorized administrative access, or the total deletion of the website's database.
Technical details
A SQL injection vulnerability exists in Emlog's `log_model.php` within the `addLog()` and `updateLog()` functions. The root cause is the direct concatenation of user-supplied input from article fields (such as title and content) into SQL INSERT and UPDATE queries without proper sanitization or escaping. An unauthenticated or low-privileged attacker can exploit this via the `/admin/article_save.php` endpoint by submitting specially crafted JSON payloads. Successful exploitation allows for arbitrary SQL execution, which can be used to bypass authentication, escalate privileges to administrator, or drop database tables. The issue is resolved in version 2.6.11 by implementing `escape_string()` on all user-controlled inputs.
Affected products
- Emlog Emlog < 2.6.11
Timeline
- 2026-04-22: advisory: GitHub Security Advisory published
- 2026-05-08: disclosed: CVE published to NVD