Severity: critical 

Affected versions:

- Apache Hive (org.apache.hive:hive-standalone-metastore) 4.0.0 through 4.2.0

Description:

SQL injection in Hive Metastore direct SQL partition-name resolution in Apache 
Hive before 4.2.1 on all platforms allows authenticated users with access to 
Hive Metastore APIs to read, modify, or affect unintended partition metadata 
(including statistics updates, truncation targets, and file-metadata cache 
operations) via crafted partition names in metastore RPC requests when direct 
SQL is enabled (the default). Users are recommended to upgrade to version 
4.2.1, which fixes this issue.

Details about the issue:
Several Hive Metastore RPCs resolve partitions by full partition name 
(PART_NAME) through direct-SQL helpers. In those paths, client-supplied 
partition names are embedded into SQL using string concatenation 
(DirectSqlUpdatePart.quoteString() → '...') instead of bind parameters. A 
partition name containing a single quote (and crafted SQL) can alter the 
generated WHERE clause so that lookups intended for one partition match 
additional rows. That can affect reads, stats updates, truncate targets, 
metadata-cache targets, and related operations when metastore.try.direct.sql is 
enabled (default: true). An authenticated or network-trusted caller with the 
ability to invoke Hive Metastore partition-name APIs against a target table 
(directly or via Hive/other clients), when direct SQL is enabled can perform 
this attack. Also, the impact is mainly within table & partition targeting 
(read/update/truncate/drop/cache the wrong partitions in a table they can 
reference), not arbitrary cross-database access via this bug alone.

This issue is being tracked as HIVE-29622 

Credit:

Leon Johnson (reporter)

References:

https://github.com/apache/hive
https://github.com/apache/hive/commit/ca64f08a8e43db9845b47d5fa2e96f7fdea7288e
https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/HIVE-29622
https://lists.apache.org/thread/6d56mk501fp4f8cb5wvrpj2jwd9knt05
https://hive.apache.org/
https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2026-49845
https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/HIVE-29622

Reply via email to