Description

Insufficient input validation in the PowerSYSTEM Center report designer allows an authenticated user to execute unauthorized SQL commands.

Executive Summary

Technical Details

Mitigations

References

Additional Metadata

{
  "score": "9.0",
  "pubDate": "2026-11-06T01:17:50.470Z",
  "pubdate": "2026-11-06T01:17:50.470Z",
  "executiveSummary": "The PowerSYSTEM Center report designer contains a critical input validation vulnerability, specifically classified as an SQL injection flaw.\nThis vulnerability allows an authenticated user to bypass intended security controls and execute arbitrary, unauthorized SQL commands against the backend database management system.\nThe primary risk implications involve complete compromise of database integrity, confidentiality, and availability.\nAn attacker possessing valid system authentication can leverage this defect to manipulate queries, extract sensitive information, modify data, or potentially perform administrative operations depending on the database service account privileges.\nExploitation requires an authenticated session within the application, limiting the attack surface to registered users; however, once accessed, the lack of input sanitization permits direct interaction with the database layer.\nThe vulnerability highlights a failure in the application's secure coding practices, specifically regarding the handling of user-supplied data within dynamic report generation components.",
  "technicalDetails": "The vulnerability resides within the report designer component of PowerSYSTEM Center, where the application fails to adequately sanitize user-supplied input before incorporating it into backend SQL queries.\nThe root cause is a failure to implement parameterized queries or robust input validation mechanisms, which permits the injection of malicious SQL syntax through the interface.\nAttack flow typically begins with an authenticated user accessing the report designer interface. During the report definition or parameter specification process, the attacker injects crafted SQL fragments into input fields that are subsequently concatenated into a dynamic SQL string on the server-side.\nBecause the application logic does not distinguish between developer-intended commands and attacker-supplied input, the database engine executes the injected malicious payloads with the privileges of the application's database service account.\nExploitation involves the crafted input prematurely terminating the intended query structure, followed by the inclusion of UNION-based injections or Boolean-based inference techniques to extract information from arbitrary tables.\nIf the database service account is over-privileged, the impact extends beyond unauthorized data retrieval to include data modification, deletion, or the execution of administrative stored procedures.\nThe technical requirements for this exploit include an existing authenticated session. There is no requirement for high-level administrative privileges initially, provided the report designer is accessible to standard authenticated users. The exposure is internal to the application's architecture, yet the consequence of successful execution provides a pathway to compromise the underlying data tier entirely.\nThe absence of input validation at the report designer layer facilitates a breakdown in the trust boundary between the application client and the data persistence layer."
}