---
id: CVE-2026-116246
title: 'pgAdmin 4: Server passwords are left in pgAdmin''s process environment'
summary: >-
  To pass a server's password to psql and to the utilities pgAdmin 4 runs as
  background processes, the server manager wrote it into pgAdmin's own process
  environment: as PGPASSWORD for the PSQL tool, and under a per-process variable
  for a …
severity: medium
cvss: 6.5
cvssVector: 'CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:L/UI:R/S:C/C:H/I:L/A:N'
cvssSource: cna
cwe:
  - CWE-214
  - CWE-526
vendor: pgadmin.org
product: pgAdmin 4
affected:
  - pgadmin_4 < 9.19
published: '2026-10-30'
updated: '2026-10-30'
sourceUpdated: '2026-10-30T19:55:16.276Z'
source: CVEORG
sourceUrl: 'https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2026-116246'
references:
  - url: 'https://github.com/pgadmin-org/pgadmin4/issues/10653'
  - url: >-
      https://github.com/pgadmin-org/pgadmin4/commit/0eefa38f774dce07c1f939d87f2993b36e2313b9
tags:
  - cve.org
epss: 0.0019
epssPercentile: 0.08812
ingestedAt: '2026-11-05T16:24:31.428Z'
---

## Overview

To pass a server's password to psql and to the utilities pgAdmin 4 runs as background processes, the server manager wrote it into pgAdmin's own process environment: as PGPASSWORD for the PSQL tool, and under a per-process variable for a utility. Nothing removed it afterwards. pgAdmin's environment is shared by every user's requests and copied into every process it starts, so in server mode another user's later PSQL session or utility inherited the password, and libpq used PGPASSWORD for any connection made without a password of its own, letting one user connect with another user's saved password.

The fix puts the password only into the environment built for the process that needs it and starts psql with a copy of pgAdmin's environment instead of the environment itself.

This issue affects pgAdmin 4: before 9.19.

## Affected

- `pgadmin_4 < 9.19`

## Remediation

Refer to the linked advisories for vendor-supplied fixes and affected version ranges.