craftcms/cms security advisory

CVE-2026-31858: CraftCMS's ElementSearchController Affected by Blind SQL Injection

CVE-2026-31858 is a high-severity SQL injection vulnerability in the PHP package craftcms/cms (CVSS 8.8), published 11 March 2026. The advisory does not name a fixed version. Exploiting it needs a low-privilege user account.

high 8.8 published 2026-03-11 · updated 2026-06-17

Affected versions: >= 5.0.0-RC1, <= 5.9.8
Fixed in: not stated
Newest release: 5.12.0
Severity: High · CVSS 8.8
Type: SQL injection
CWE-89
Exploited in the wild: Not on the CISA KEV list
checked 2026-11-04

Is your craftcms/cms version affected?

Run composer show craftcms/cms in your project, then enter the version. We check it against this and every other known craftcms/cms advisory.

Who can exploit CVE-2026-31858

Access: A normal, low-privilege user account in the app.

CVSS vector (scored by NVD): CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

Your app is only exposed if it uses the affected part of craftcms/cms. The advisory below says which part that is. If you are not sure, upgrade anyway: it costs less than finding out.

How to fix CVE-2026-31858 in craftcms/cms

Find the installed version: composer show craftcms/cms. If you never required it yourself, composer why craftcms/cms shows which package pulls it in.
Update it: composer update craftcms/cms --with-all-dependencies.
If Composer will not go that high, your composer.json constraint is holding it back. Widen it (for example "craftcms/cms": "^5.12.0" if you can take that version), or upgrade the package that requires it.
Run composer audit. It reads the same advisory data and should no longer list CVE-2026-31858.
Commit composer.lock and deploy it. On the server, run composer install --no-dev from the lock file, not composer update.

If you cannot upgrade yet

The advisory gives this workaround:

Users should update to the patched 5.9.9 release to mitigate the issue.

General hardening for SQL injection issues while the upgrade waits. None of it replaces the fix.

Make sure user input never reaches the affected query builder or ORM method unvalidated; allow-list column and sort names.
Give the app's database user only the permissions it needs.
If your app does not use the affected feature, note that in your audit, but still plan the upgrade.

The CVE-2026-31858 advisory

Craft is a content management system (CMS). The ElementSearchController::actionSearch() endpoint is missing the unset() protection that was added to ElementIndexesController in CVE-2026-25495. The exact same SQL injection vulnerability (including criteria[orderBy], the original advisory vector) works on this controller because the fix was never applied to it. Any authenticated control panel user (no admin required) can inject arbitrary SQL via criteria[where], criteria[orderBy], or other query properties, and extract the full database contents via boolean-based blind injection. Users should update to the patched 5.9.9 release to mitigate the issue.

Description from the CVE record, published by GitHub (the CVE Numbering Authority), via the NVD entry for CVE-2026-31858. Advisory title: “CraftCMS's ElementSearchController Affected by Blind SQL Injection”.

References

GitHub advisory GHSA-g7j6-fmwx-7vp8 github.com
Fix commit e1a3dd6 github.com

Other craftcms/cms advisories

critical Craft CMS: Passkey login accepts replayed WebAuthn assertions 2026-08-07
medium CVE-2026-72779: Craft CMS: Arbitrary file read via SplFileObject in non-sandboxed template contexts 2026-08-06
medium CVE-2026-72782: Craft CMS: Authenticated leak of secret environment variables 2026-08-06
medium CVE-2026-72785: Craft CMS: Authorization bypass: view-only Categories user can modify category structure via structures/move-element 2026-08-06
medium CVE-2026-14794: Craft CMS: Missing authorization check allows non-admin control panel users access to user registration metrics 2026-08-06
low CVE-2026-72783: Craft CMS: Incorrect path validation could potentially lead to path traversal 2026-08-06

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Where this data comes from

Affected and fixed versions: the Packagist security advisories API (GitHub Advisory Database and FriendsOfPHP), the same data composer audit uses. Synced 2026-11-03.
Description, score, weakness and references: NIST National Vulnerability Database (NVD), checked 2026-11-04. This product uses data from the NVD API but is not endorsed or certified by the NVD.
Exploited-in-the-wild status: the CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog, checked 2026-11-04.
Compiled by Daniel Lasek at Laskyr from the sources above. The summary, “who can exploit it”, “how to fix it” and hardening sections are our plain-English reading of the record and are generated from it. The quoted description is the record's own text. Spot an error? Tell us.