MediumCVE-2026-119281

    Mariadb-corporation Mariadb-connector-j: Inappropriate Encoding for Output Context (CVE-2026-119281)

    Published Last modified Sources: BSI, OSV, Hersteller, CVE.org

    What is affected, what to do

    Update MariaDB Java Connector to version 3.5.11, org.mariadb.jdbc:mariadb-java-client to version 3.3.7.

    Affected
    • Mariadb-corporation Mariadb-connector-j gte 3.0.0, < 3.3.7..*

    Not sure whether and how you are affected? Ask a question about this vulnerability

    Metrics

    5.9

    Priority

    XIEM Effective CVSS: highest available CVSS rating from NVD and vendor data.

    Source: Vendor (CNA), CVSS v3

    5.9

    CVSS v3

    Severity Medium on the scale from 0 to 10.

    Source: BSI, OSV, Hersteller, CVE.org

    0.3 %

    EPSS score

    Low — model estimates < 1% exploitation likelihood.

    Source: FIRST EPSS, percentile 20.9

    Show all metrics
    Severity
    Medium
    Priority (0–325)

    The priority score is a consolidated metric that condenses several individual signals into a single, action-guiding ranking: technical severity (CVSS), exploitation likelihood (EPSS), known-exploited status (KEV) and the context of the affected asset. The aim is to answer the only truly important question in vulnerability management: what first?

    Read in glossary
    62.99 Methodology
    Exploit maturity

    An exploit is code or a technique that specifically uses a concrete vulnerability to force unintended behaviour — such as executing code or escalating privileges. It is the tool that turns a theoretical flaw into a practical attack.

    Read in glossary
    no public PoC known
    XIEM Effective CVSS

    XIEM® is the tiered managed-security operating model from NEOSEC and a registered trademark of NEOSEC GmbH. It extends classic SIEM — the central collection, normalisation and correlation of security-relevant events — with endpoint forensics, network visibility and deception technology, and consolidates them into three building tiers: Sentry, Orchestrate and Command.

    Read in glossary
    5.9 Methodology
    CVSS v3

    CVSS is the globally established, open standard for assessing the technical severity of a vulnerability on a scale from 0 to 10. It describes how easily a flaw can be exploited and what damage it can cause — but not how likely its actual exploitation is. CVSS and the complementary EPSS deliberately answer different questions.

    Read in glossary
    5.9
    EPSS score

    The EPSS score is the absolute model output for an individual vulnerability: the estimated probability of real-world exploitation within the next 30 days, expressed as a value between 0 and 1 (i.e. 0 % to 100 %). A score of 0.42 means „the model estimates a 42 % chance of real-world exploitation within 30 days“.

    Read in glossary
    0.3 %
    Low — model estimates < 1% exploitation likelihood.
    EPSS percentile

    The EPSS percentile is the relative position of a vulnerability within all EPSS-scored CVEs, expressed as a value between 0 and 1. A percentile of 0.90 means „this CVE has a higher EPSS score than 90 % of all other scored CVEs“. Unlike the EPSS score, it is not a probability — but a positioning within a ranking.

    Read in glossary
    20.9
    Elevated — this CVE ranks above at least 10% of all CVEs scored today.
    KEV status

    The KEV catalogue is a list maintained by the US authority CISA of vulnerabilities for which active exploitation in the wild has been confirmed. It answers not the question „how severe?“ but „is it already being attacked?“ — thereby sharply prioritising patching.

    Read in glossary
    —
    Published
    CWE

    CWE is a catalogue of typical weakness types in software and hardware — such as flawed input validation, unsafe memory handling or poor authentication. Where a CVE names a concrete vulnerability in a concrete product, a CWE describes the underlying class of defect.

    Read in glossary
    CWE-838

    Detection rules

    No NEOSEC detection rule is available for this vulnerability yet.

    Classification under NIS2 and CRA

    Rule-based classification from exploitation status and severity. It does not replace a case-by-case assessment.

    NIS2

    NIS2 is EU Directive (EU) 2022/2555 to raise the level of cybersecurity across the Union. It substantially broadens obligations compared with the first NIS directive: more sectors, mandatory risk management, staged reporting duties and personal accountability of senior management.

    Read in glossary
    Handle the vulnerability in regular vulnerability handling under Art. 21(2)(e) NIS2.
    CRA

    The CRA is EU Regulation (EU) 2024/2847 setting horizontal cybersecurity requirements for „products with digital elements“ — from industrial controllers and software to connected consumer devices. For the first time manufacturers must ensure security across the entire product lifecycle, handle vulnerabilities and provide security updates.

    Read in glossary
    From 11.12.2027, Annex I Part II CRA requires manufacturers of affected products with digital elements to handle vulnerabilities without delay and provide security updates.
    ISO/IEC 27001

    ISO/IEC 27001 is the internationally leading standard for an information security management system (ISMS). It describes a risk-based, process-oriented framework to systematically plan, implement, review and improve information security.

    Read in glossary
    Control A.8.8, management of technical vulnerabilities: assess relevance to your systems, plan remediation and keep evidence.

    Description

    Summary

    MariaDB Connector/J decodes every result as UTF-8 and guards character_set_client against a change to another charset, but did not guard character_set_results, and relied on the server's global session_track_system_variables list to be told about charset changes at all.

    Details

    The connector learns about session variable changes through session tracking, and closes the connection when character_set_client is switched away from UTF-8, so that its UTF-8 decoding stays correct. Two gaps remained:

    • character_set_results was not guarded: a server could switch it to another charset, after which the bytes of every result were decoded as UTF-8 although encoded otherwise.
    • the list of tracked variables came from the server's global session_track_system_variables: a server configured, or made, not to track the character set variables could change them silently.

    The fix requests an explicit session tracking list that includes both character set variables whatever the server's global setting, and closes the connection when character_set_results is changed to a charset other than utf8, utf8mb3 or utf8mb4, as it already did for character_set_client.

    Impact

    Integrity: a malicious or compromised server, or a MitM, can make the strings an application reads differ from the bytes the server returned (inappropriate encoding for the output context), which can defeat application-side validation or escaping built on those values. Exploitation requires control of the server side of the connection; no confidentiality or availability impact.

    Credit

    Reported by fg0x0

    Source: BSI CSAF, BSI WID Portal, OSV (Open Source Vulnerabilities), GitHub Security Advisories, NVD (NIST), cvelistv5

    Affected products

    The following versions are affected. Older releases of the same product line are also vulnerable unless stated otherwise.

    Affected products
    Affected versionsFixed in
    mariadb-corporationmariadb-connector-j
    • ≥ 3.0.0, < 3.3.7
    • —
    MariaDBMariaDB Java Connector
    • < 3.5.11
    • < 3.4.5
    • < 3.3.7
    • 3.5.11
    • 3.4.5
    • 3.3.7
    mavenorg.mariadb.jdbc:mariadb-java-client
    • 3.5.2
    • 3.3.1
    • 3.5.10
    • 3.1.0
    • 3.5.8
    • 3.5.7
    • 3.3.6
    • 3.0.11
    • 3.5.6
    • >= 3.0.0, < 3.3.7
    • >= 3.4.0, < 3.4.5
    • 3.1.1
    • 3.4.1
    • 3.0.10
    • 3.5.4
    • 3.0.3
    • 3.0.6
    • 3.0.0
    • 3.5.5
    • 3.0.4
    • 3.3.4
    • 3.0.9
    • 3.3.5
    • 3.1.2
    • 3.4.4
    • 3.0.5
    • 3.5.1
    • >= 3.5.0, < 3.5.11
    • 3.0.7
    • 3.3.3
    • 3.0.1-beta
    • 3.4.3
    • 3.4.0
    • 3.1.4
    • 3.4.2
    • 3.0.2-rc
    • 3.3.0
    • 3.0.8
    • 3.5.0
    • 3.1.3
    • 3.2.0
    • 3.5.9
    • 3.3.2
    • 3.5.3
    • —
    • —
    • —
    • —
    • —
    • —
    • —
    • —
    • —
    • 3.3.7
    • 3.4.5
    • —
    • —
    • —
    • —
    • —
    • —
    • 3.3.7
    • —
    • —
    • —
    • —
    • —
    • —
    • —
    • —
    • —
    • 3.5.11
    • —
    • —
    • —
    • —
    • 3.4.5
    • —
    • —
    • —
    • —
    • —
    • 3.5.11
    • —
    • —
    • —
    • —
    • —

    Vendors and products

    Weakness classes (CWE)

    • CWE-838Inappropriate Encoding for Output Context

      Base

      The product uses or specifies an encoding when generating output to a downstream component, but the specified encoding is not the same as the encoding that is expected by the downstream component.

      Entry at MITRE CWE-838

    References & sources

    • github.commariadb-corporation/mariadb-connector-j/commit/af5e565eb171cfc6…x_refsource_MISC, web
    • github.commariadb-corporation/mariadb-connector-j/commit/d51b968c1b795c73…x_refsource_MISC, web
    • github.commariadb-corporation/mariadb-connector-j/commit/fdabe74a7df6dce1…x_refsource_MISC, web
    • github.commariadb-corporation/mariadb-connector-j/releases/tag/3.3.7x_refsource_MISC, web
    • github.commariadb-corporation/mariadb-connector-j/releases/tag/3.4.5x_refsource_MISC, web
    • github.commariadb-corporation/mariadb-connector-j/releases/tag/3.5.11x_refsource_MISC, web
    • github.commariadb-corporation/mariadb-connector-j/security/advisories/GHS…x_refsource_CONFIRM, web
    • NVD (NIST)vuln/detail/CVE-2026-119281advisory
    • github.commariadb-corporation/mariadb-connector-jpackage

    Changes to this CVE

    Who changed this CVE and when: NVD (analysis, affected products, CVSS), the CVE publisher (CNA) and additional providers such as CISA (ADP).

    1. ReceivedGitHub

      CVSS V3.1: AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:H/A:N

      Weakness type: CWE-838

      Description added or changed

      Show 11 original changes
      Individual changes of this event as published by NVD
      TypeActionBeforeAfter
      Descriptionadded
      —
      MariaDB Connector/J is used to connect applications developed in Java to MariaDB and MySQL databases. From 3.0.0 until 3.3.7, 3.4.5, and 3.5.11, the connector assumed result bytes were UTF-8 but guarded only changes to character_set_client. It did not reject non-UTF-8 character_set_results changes and relied on the server's global session_track_system_variables configuration to report character-set changes. A malicious or compromised server, or a machine-in-the-middle attacker, could suppress tracking or change the result charset so application strings differed from the returned bytes, potentially defeating application-side validation or escaping that depended on the decoded values. This issue is fixed in versions 3.3.7, 3.4.5, and 3.5.11.
      CVSSadded
      —
      AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:H/A:N
      Weakness type (CWE)added
      —
      CWE-838
      Affected versions (publisher)added
      —
      New affected value received. <a href="https://github.com/CVEProject/cvelistV5/blob/main/cves/2026/119xxx/CVE-2026-119281.json">CVE-2026-119281</a>
      Referenceadded
      —
      https://github.com/mariadb-corporation/mariadb-connector-j/commit/af5e565eb171cfc66ea8e948ddc616abed0c4623
      Referenceadded
      —
      https://github.com/mariadb-corporation/mariadb-connector-j/commit/d51b968c1b795c73d24e0b3f960205b7bc82d423
      Referenceadded
      —
      https://github.com/mariadb-corporation/mariadb-connector-j/commit/fdabe74a7df6dce1d6c099f4d0ca1e2acc25919a
      Referenceadded
      —
      https://github.com/mariadb-corporation/mariadb-connector-j/releases/tag/3.3.7
      Referenceadded
      —
      https://github.com/mariadb-corporation/mariadb-connector-j/releases/tag/3.4.5
      Referenceadded
      —
      https://github.com/mariadb-corporation/mariadb-connector-j/releases/tag/3.5.11
      Referenceadded
      —
      https://github.com/mariadb-corporation/mariadb-connector-j/security/advisories/GHSA-grfq-r75j-rw9x

      Source identifier: security-advisories@github.com

    Embed badge

    Show the severity and KEV status of this vulnerability on your site – with a link back here. The image is updated hourly.

    Badge preview for CVE-2026-119281
    <a href="https://intel.neosec.eu/en/cve/CVE-2026-119281"><img src="https://intel.neosec.eu/badge/cve/CVE-2026-119281.svg?lang=en" alt="CVE-2026-119281 – NEOSEC Intel" height="20"></a>