It’s January 1st, 2026. I barely finished my first cup of tea (sencha — nothing fancy, just enough to feel functional) when the first CVE of the year landed. We were promised flying cars, Neuralink chips to code by thought and AIs that would solve world hunger. But no. CVE-2026-0544 is here to remind us we’re still in 1998: it’s a SQL Injection.
Yes, an SQLi. In 2026. It’s like discovering that the latest SpaceX spacecraft is held together with duct tape and a prayer.
1998: The year everything was said (and ignored)
To understand how ridiculous this is, we must go back to the days of baggy pants and dial-up internet making a blender noise. In December 1998, Jeff Forristal (Rain Forest Puppy) published in Phrack #54 the article “NT Web Technology Vulnerabilities”.
He explained — with a clarity that even today’s intern should grasp — how a simple ' OR 1=1 -- could bypass authentication. That was 28 years ago. Since then we’ve seen seven Windows versions, the birth and death of Flash, and the rise of all-knowing AIs. Yet we’re still getting tripped up by a misplaced quote. We haven’t progressed; we’re just doing software archaeology without realizing it.
And a quick Back to the Future aside: if Doc Brown showed up in a DeLorean, looked me in the eye and said, “Marty, we need to go back to 1998!”, I’d reply: “Doc, no need for 88 mph — 2026 already looks a lot like it.” Modems squealed then, our AI agents squeal now when asked for clean SQL. Same fight, different costumes. Whether at 88 mph or not, the vulnerability catches up with us.
Nicolas Ruff was right: Security is failing
I can’t avoid mentioning the prophet of our misery, Nicolas Ruff (aka News0ft). His talk at SSTIC 2009, “Why security is failing”, is no longer a talk — it’s a clinical description of our daily life.
The conclusion is simple: we don’t fix things. We stack layers. We created ORMs to avoid writing SQL, containers to contain misery, and AI scanners to tell us everything is fine. But as News0ft said, user data always finds a path to the execution engine. CVE-2026-0544 is the absurd proof that the more complex our defense layers, the more we forget to lock the front door. We built a vault with lasers but left the key under the doormat because “it was easier for testing”.
BTTF version: we added a flux capacitor to security but forgot to attach the cable to the clock tower. The result: it never leaves, and we’re stuck in 1955… sorry, 1998.
Anatomy of a dumb commit
The flaw comes from an analytics module. The best part? It looks word for word like horrors already seen on GitHub, Stack Overflow, and even in reputed open-source projects. It’s the “I saw it somewhere so it must be correct” syndrome.
It’s brut art. The kind of code that makes you want to raise sheep in the mountains of Corsica…
The “Yolo” (Vulnerable) code example:
// We take the ID and pray the user is nice
$reportId = $_GET['id'];
$query = "SELECT * FROM analytics_reports WHERE report_id = " . $reportId . " AND status = 'active'";
$result = $db->query($query);
The fix (which should have been there, given the above code…)
// Spoiler: prepared statements existed before you were born
$stmt = $db->prepare("SELECT * FROM analytics_reports WHERE report_id = ? AND status = 'active'");
$stmt->bind_param("i", $reportId);
$stmt->execute();
Three lines. Three lines could have prevented becoming the internet’s punchline on the first day of the year. As Doc would say: “It’s not you that’s failing, it’s your… strings.”
The quantum leap: From SQLi to Prompt Injection
The icing on the irony cake in 2026 is that while we let elementary-level SQLi through, we’re thrilled about Prompt Injections.
It’s the same movie, just with a bigger marketing budget and a trendier soundtrack. But the plot? Identical: we hit the accelerator, forget the brakes, and hope lightning strikes at the right moment.
- With SQLi, you inject commands into a database.
- With Prompt Injection, you inject instructions into an AI to make it forget its safety constraints.
And the ultimate twist is Second-Order Prompt Injection: an AI reads a database infected by SQLi and executes the malicious instruction hidden there. We’ve managed to create a hybrid vulnerability between 1998 and 2026. It’s cinematic — like Christopher Nolan — except it’s our infrastructure that explodes at the end. Or like Marty reading the wrong almanac: we think we win, but in fact… Biff becomes mayor.
PHP: the indestructible punching bag
We can’t part without mentioning PHP. In 2026, PHP 9.x is a high-performance, typed language, but it drags its past like a ball and chain. Blaming PHP for an SQL injection is like blaming a pen for writing nonsense.
But let’s be honest: PHP is that old friend who hands you a shovel whenever it sees you start digging your own grave. “Oh, you want to concatenate strings into a query? Go ahead champ, I’m listening.”
Meanwhile Node.js fans snicker behind their screens, forgetting their project depends on 5,000 npm packages, including one maintained by a person who hasn’t shown up since 2021 and another that mines Monero whenever you run a build. We’re all on the same sinking ship; we just have different colored life jackets. And Doc isn’t here to reconnect the cables.
OWASP: Read it, please
If you don’t want your name in an article like this, there’s a radical solution: read the docs. OWASP isn’t there for decoration. A small BTTF wink: it’s the DeLorean maintenance manual — read it before activating the flux capacitor, not after the storm.
- A03:2021 – Injection: If it’s still on the podium, it’s because we’re collectively lazy.
- SQL Injection Prevention Cheat Sheet: It’s the highway code for databases. Not following it is driving the wrong way on the motorway hoping others will be careful.
Conclusion
CVE-2026-0544 proves that human progress is an illusion, at least in computing. We have servers that could simulate the universe, yet we still get stuck on an escaping character. I’d like to tell you my green tea calmed me, but honestly: I put the cup down three times before finishing this paragraph.
Nicolas Ruff was right: security is failing as long as we treat vulnerabilities as isolated accidents instead of cultural problems. So for 2026, instead of learning a 15th JS framework, maybe just learn to never, ever concatenate a variable into an SQL query.
Happy New Year anyway. Try not to break everything before February. And if you see a DeLorean: don’t try for 88 mph, just try to avoid ' and ;.
Final echo in Doc & Marty style: “It’s not speed that will save us, it’s input validation.”
Sources:
- Phrack 54 – NT Web Technology Vulnerabilities (Jeff Forristal / Rain Forest Puppy)
- Why security is failing — SSTIC 2009 (Nicolas Ruff)
- OWASP: Top 10 A03:2021 – Injection · SQL Injection Prevention Cheat Sheet
- CVE-2026-0544 — official record
- Back to the Future (1985) — because at 88 mph, CVEs come back.