Urgent Security Alert: CISA Warns of Actively Exploited Grafana Vulnerability (CVE-2021-43798)
The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) has issued a critical directive, adding a high-severity vulnerability in the popular Grafana analytics platform to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) catalog. This action confirms that cybercriminals are actively exploiting this flaw in real-world attacks, making it an immediate threat to organizations worldwide.
The vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2021-43798, is a path traversal flaw that allows unauthenticated attackers to read sensitive files on the underlying server where Grafana is installed. This means a remote attacker could potentially access credentials, configuration files, private keys, and other critical data without needing any valid login information.
Understanding the Grafana Path Traversal Flaw
This vulnerability specifically affects the plugins directory in Grafana and can be exploited through crafted HTTP requests. An attacker can use a simple technique to bypass security controls and navigate outside the intended directory to access any file readable by the Grafana user on the server.
The following Grafana versions are known to be vulnerable:
- Grafana versions 8.0.0-beta1 through 8.3.0
If your organization is running any version within this range, your systems are exposed and require immediate attention. The flaw, which has a CVSS severity score of 7.5 (High), is alarmingly easy to exploit, lowering the barrier for even less-skilled threat actors to launch successful attacks.
Why CISA’s Warning is a Major Red Flag
Inclusion in CISA’s KEV catalog is not a theoretical warning; it is a definitive statement that a vulnerability has been weaponized and is being used to compromise systems. While federal agencies are mandated to patch these flaws by a specific deadline, this serves as a powerful signal to all public and private sector organizations. If a vulnerability is on the KEV list, it should be treated as a top-priority security risk.
Attackers who successfully exploit CVE-2021-43798 can use the stolen information for a variety of malicious purposes, including:
- Escalating privileges within the network.
- Moving laterally to other critical systems.
- Deploying ransomware or other malware.
- Exfiltrating sensitive business or customer data.
How to Protect Your Systems: Immediate Steps to Take
Protecting your infrastructure from this active threat requires swift and decisive action. Follow these steps to mitigate your risk immediately.
Identify Vulnerable Instances: The first step is to conduct an immediate audit of your environment to identify all instances of Grafana. Determine the exact version number for each deployment.
Patch Immediately: This is the most critical step. The Grafana development team has released patches to address this vulnerability. Administrators are urged to upgrade to a secure version as soon as possible. The recommended patched versions include:
- Grafana 8.3.1
- Grafana 8.2.7
- Grafana 8.1.8
- Grafana 8.0.7
- Or any later version.
Investigate for Signs of Compromise: Because this flaw is being actively exploited, it is wise to review server logs for suspicious activity. Look for unusual GET requests targeting the
/public/plugins/endpoint that contain traversal sequences like../. Signs of a successful breach could include access to sensitive file paths such as/etc/passwdor application configuration files.Implement Network Segmentation: As a best practice, ensure that critical tools like Grafana are not directly exposed to the public internet unless absolutely necessary. Placing them behind a firewall, VPN, or other access controls can significantly reduce the attack surface and provide an additional layer of defense.
This CISA alert underscores the persistent danger of unpatched software. A vulnerability that has been known for some time can re-emerge as a major threat once it becomes a favored tool for attackers. All organizations using Grafana must act now to apply these critical updates and secure their data and infrastructure.
Source: https://securityaffairs.com/183192/hacking/u-s-cisa-adds-grafana-flaw-to-its-known-exploited-vulnerabilities-catalog.html
