CVE-2026-9059: NextGEN Gallery - SQL Injection

Vulnerability summary

CVE-2026-9059 is a critical (CVSS 9.3) SQL Injection vulnerability in awesomemotive nextgen gallery. EPSS estimates a 0.37% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 29.5% of scored vulnerabilities. Fixed in 4.2.1.

Timeline

1. 20-05-2026
   PublishedVulnerability first disclosed.
2. 20-05-2026
   Last modifiedVulnerability information updated.

Description

NextGEN Gallery version prior to 4.2.1 are vulnerable to authenticated SQL injection via the 'orderby' parameter on the REST API endpoints '/imagely/v1/galleries' and '/imagely/v1/albums'. The root cause is an insufficient sanitization function ('_clean_column()') in the data mapper layer that uses a character blacklist instead of a whitelist approach. This allows an authenticated attacker with the 'NextGEN Gallery overview' capability (assigned to the Administrator role by default) to inject arbitrary SQL into the 'ORDER BY' clause.

• CWE-89Improper Neutralization of Special Elements used in an SQL Command ('SQL Injection')The product constructs all or part of an SQL command using externally-influenced input from an upstream component, but it does not neutralize or incorrectly neutralizes special elements that could modify the intended SQL command when it is sent to a downstream component. Without sufficient removal or quoting of SQL syntax in user-controllable inputs, the generated SQL query can cause those inputs to be interpreted as SQL instead of ordinary user data.