GHSA-27vq-hv74-7cqp: SurrealDB has Silent Failure to Overwrite Table Definition of Relation Type

The OVERWRITE clause of the DEFINE TABLE statement would fail to overwrite data for tables that were defined with TYPE RELATION. Since table definitions include the PERMISSIONS clause, this failure would result in permissions not being overwritten as a result, which may potentially lead users to believe they have changed the table permissions when they have not.

Impact

If a user attempted to update table permissions of a table defined with TYPE RELATION using DEFINE TABLE … OVERWRITE, permissions for the table would not be changed. This may allow a client that is authorized to run queries in a SurrealDB server to access certain data in that specific table that they were not intended to be able to access after the specified change in permissions.

Patches

The DEFINE TABLE statement has been updated to appropriately overwrite data for tables defined with TYPE RELATION.

• Version 2.1.3 and later are not affected by this issue.

Workarounds

Users of tables with TYPE RELATION that may have been modified using the OVERWRITE clause in order to update permissions are advised to verify that the intended permissions are in place using the INFO FOR DB statement. Affected users who are unable to update and require updating permissions in a table with TYPE RELATION will be required to remove the table and define it from scratch with the intended permissions. Data can be preserved by backing it up to a temporary table.

References

• #5260

References

• GHSA-27vq-hv74-7cqp
• surrealdb/surrealdb#5260