DBI versions before 1.653 for Perl load arbitrary modules via unvalidated dbm_type and dbm_mldbm attributes in DBD::DBM.
DBD::DBM passes the dbm_type and dbm_mldbm connect attributes to require without checking that the value names a module. require treats a path-shaped string as a literal filename and does not consult @INC, so the attribute chooses the file that Perl loads and runs.
The MLDBM::Serializer:: prefix that DBD::DBM prepends to dbm_mldbm is not a boundary: only the :: separators are rewritten to /, so a value containing / traverses out of the serializer directory. The value is also assigned to $MLDBM::Serializer, which MLDBM requires the same way when it ties the table.
A caller that lets an untrusted party influence either attribute, for example through a DSN fragment or a parameter that selects a storage backend, runs the file-scope code of whatever module the value names.
For example,
my $dsn = "dbi:DBM:f_dir=/var/db;dbm_type=../../Untrusted.pm" my $dbh = DBI->connect( $dsn );
Note that DBD::Gofer forwards connect attributes to the server side, and DBI::ProxyServer checks only that a DSN starts with a driver prefix.