[ CVE-2026-85714 · Published 14 Oct 2026 ]
Vulnerability in Stirling-Tools Stirling-PDF
[ Why it matters ]Priority signals
- Public proof-of-concept exploit exists (CISA SSVC)
- Critical severity: CVSS 9.1
[ Description ]Official description
Stirling-PDF is a locally hosted web application that facilitates various operations on PDF files. Prior to 2.13.2, an authenticated administrator using the default H2 database and security mode can upload a crafted SQL file to POST /api/v1/database/import-database. DatabaseService.validateSqlContent() splits normalized input on semicolons and accepts a statement when it contains any allowed keyword, allowing dangerous H2 functions such as FILE_READ and CSVWRITE, plus CREATE ALIAS, to bypass the insufficient whitelist and execute side effects when RUNSCRIPT processes the file. This permits arbitrary file access. The demonstrated operating-system command execution chain writes attacker-controlled startup files to a user-site location and then triggers an application Python interpreter configured to load those startup files, resulting in command execution as the JVM service account. This issue is fixed in version 2.13.2.
[ Fixes ]Fixes and patches
No fix or interim patch is linked from our sources yet. Check the vendor references below and limit exposure of affected systems until a fix is available.