VDB
KO
LOW 3.1

GHSA-rxhg-vcww-2mpw

Fleet: ORDER BY column injection on activity list endpoints

Quick fix

GHSA-rxhg-vcww-2mpw — github.com/fleetdm/fleet/v4: upgrade to the fixed version with the command below.

go get github.com/fleetdm/fleet/v4@v4.89.0

Details

### Summary

An authenticated user with read access to Activity could influence the `ORDER BY` clause of the activity list endpoints by supplying an arbitrary sort column:

- `GET /api/v1/fleet/activities` (`ListActivities`) - `GET /api/v1/fleet/hosts/{id}/activities` (`ListHostPastActivities`)

This originated from the deprecated cursor-pagination helper (`appendListOptionsWithCursorToSQL`), which interpolated the caller-supplied order key into SQL without an allowlist. The original report's `node_key` extraction scenario (`/api/v1/fleet/labels/{id}/hosts`) was remediated separately in #44385; these two activity endpoints were the residual call sites, neither of which joins the `hosts` table, so `node_key` was never reachable through them.

### Impact

Read-only. Because the order key was interpolated, an authenticated user with Activity read could sort by columns not otherwise returned in these responses. The exposure was bounded to columns on `activity_past` (e.g. `details` on `/api/v1/fleet/activities`, which is not in that endpoint's SELECT; host-only activities are already excluded by `WHERE host_only = false`). There is no privilege escalation, write access, or reachability of `node_key` or other host-join columns through these endpoints.

### Remediation

The deprecated helper was removed from the codebase. Both endpoints now pass the caller-supplied sort column through `SanitizeColumn`, which strips all characters except `[\w-.]` and backtick-quotes each identifier segment. This closes the injection vector: separators, whitespace, parentheses, and quotes cannot survive sanitization, so an expression-based `ORDER BY` oracle is not constructable.

### Affected versions

`< fleet-v4.89.0`. Fixed in `fleet-v4.89.0`.

### Credit

Thanks to @axel-corsiez for the report.

Are you affected?

Enter the version of the package you're using.

Affected packages

Go / github.com/fleetdm/fleet/v4
Introduced in: 0 Fixed in: 4.89.0
Fix go get github.com/fleetdm/fleet/v4@v4.89.0

References