Medium severity · published Oct 29, 2026
CVE-2026-119281
MariaDB Connector/J: Server could switch character_set_results away from UTF-8 without the client noticing
New
5.9
CVSS
–
EPSS
No
On KEV
Description
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.
CVSS vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:H/A:N
Attack vector
Network
Complexity
High
Privileges
None
User interaction
None
Confidentiality
None
Integrity
High
Availability
None
Scope
Unchanged
Exploitation
Is it being used?
Exploited in the wildNo evidence yet
CISA KEVNot listed
Ransomware campaign useNot known
Affected products
Which versions
MA
mariadb-connector-j · mariadb-corporation
>= 3.0.0, < 3.3.7; >= 3.4.0, < 3.4.5; >= 3.5.0, < 3.5.11 · source: vendor
References
NVD
https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-119281
CVE.org
https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2026-119281
x_refsource_CONFIRM
https://github.com/mariadb-corporation/mariadb-connector-j/security/advisories/GHSA-grfq-r75j-rw9x
x_refsource_MISC
https://github.com/mariadb-corporation/mariadb-connector-j/commit/af5e565eb171cfc66ea8e948ddc616abed0c4623
x_refsource_MISC
https://github.com/mariadb-corporation/mariadb-connector-j/commit/d51b968c1b795c73d24e0b3f960205b7bc82d423
x_refsource_MISC
https://github.com/mariadb-corporation/mariadb-connector-j/commit/fdabe74a7df6dce1d6c099f4d0ca1e2acc25919a
x_refsource_MISC
https://github.com/mariadb-corporation/mariadb-connector-j/releases/tag/3.3.7
x_refsource_MISC
https://github.com/mariadb-corporation/mariadb-connector-j/releases/tag/3.4.5
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