Executive brief
OpenCATS, an open-source applicant tracking system used by recruiters, contains a security flaw in its data display component. An authorized user can exploit this flaw to bypass security controls and extract the entire contents of the database, including sensitive candidate information, personal data, and encrypted passwords. This could lead to a total loss of data confidentiality and potential identity theft or further system compromise.
Technical details
A time-based blind SQL injection vulnerability exists in OpenCATS versions up to and including 0.9.7.4. The vulnerability is located in the DataGrid component, specifically within the 'sortDirection' parameter processed by 'ajax/getDataGridPager.php'. The root cause is the direct concatenation of the 'sortDirection' parameter into a SQL ORDER BY clause without proper validation or sanitization in 'lib/DataGrid.php'. An authenticated attacker with low privileges can send crafted GET requests containing malicious SQL payloads to perform binary search extraction of database data via SLEEP() functions. While the use of mysqli_query() prevents multi-statement attacks like data modification, an attacker can still fully dump the database schema and records. No patch is currently available.
Affected products
- OpenCATS OpenCATS <= 0.9.7.4
Timeline
- 2026-04-23: advisory: GitHub Security Advisory published
- 2026-05-27: other: Exploit-DB entry published with proof-of-concept code
- 2026-05-31: disclosed: CVE published and added to NVD