CVE-2022-46146

Prometheus Exporter-Toolkit is vulnerable to authentication bypass

Workarounds

There is no workaround but attacker must have access to the hashed password, stored in disk, to bypass the authentication.

Credit

We want to thank Lei Wan reporting this security issue.

Prometheus and its exporters can be secured by a web.yml file that specifies usernames and hashed passwords for basic authentication.

Passwords are hashed with bcrypt, which means that even if you have access to the hash, it is very hard to find the original password back.

However, a flaw in the way this mechanism was implemented in the exporter toolkit makes it possible with people who know the hashed password to authenticate against Prometheus.

A request can be forged by an attacker to poison the internal cache used to cache the computation of hashes and make subsequent requests successful. This cache is used in both happy and unhappy scenarios in order to limit side channel attacks that could tell an attacker if a user is present in the file or not.

The application does not adequately verify the identity of a user, device, or process before granting access. Typical impact: unauthorized access to functions or data reserved for authenticated parties.

CVE-2022-46146 has a CVSS score of 6.2 (Medium). The vector is requires local access, no privileges required, and no user interaction. A CVSS score reflects the worst-case severity of the vulnerability, not your specific exposure. Whether this affects your application depends on whether the vulnerable code is present and reachable in your environment. A fixed version is available (0.8.2, 0.7.2); upgrading removes the vulnerable code path.

Kodem intelligence

Already deployed Kodem?

The exporter-toolkit v0.7.3 and v0.8.2 have been released to address this issue.

1. What is CVE-2022-46146? CVE-2022-46146 is a medium-severity improper authentication vulnerability in github.com/prometheus/exporter-toolkit (go), affecting versions >= 0.8.0, < 0.8.2. It is fixed in 0.8.2, 0.7.2. The application does not adequately verify the identity of a user, device, or process before granting access.
2. How severe is CVE-2022-46146? CVE-2022-46146 has a CVSS score of 6.2 (Medium). This score reflects the worst-case severity of the vulnerability, not your specific exposure. Whether it represents real risk in your environment depends on whether the vulnerable code is present and reachable.
3. Which versions of github.com/prometheus/exporter-toolkit are affected by CVE-2022-46146? github.com/prometheus/exporter-toolkit (go) versions >= 0.8.0, < 0.8.2 is affected.
4. Is there a fix for CVE-2022-46146? Yes. CVE-2022-46146 is fixed in 0.8.2, 0.7.2. Upgrade to this version or later.
5. Is CVE-2022-46146 exploitable, and should I be worried? Whether CVE-2022-46146 is exploitable in your environment depends on whether the vulnerable code is present and reachable. A CVSS score is a worst-case rating; it does not account for your specific deployment, configuration, or usage patterns. Kodem, an Intelligent Application Security platform, uses runtime intelligence to show which vulnerabilities actually execute in production, so you can focus on the ones that represent real risk. Get a demo
6. What actually determines whether CVE-2022-46146 is exploitable, and how bad it is? Exploitability and impact are not fixed properties of a CVE. They depend on runtime truth: whether the vulnerable code is present, reachable, and actually executes in your application. A high CVSS score on a dependency that never runs is not the same as real risk. Kodem, an Intelligent Application Security platform, uses runtime intelligence to reveal which vulnerabilities actually execute in production, so teams prioritize the ones that genuinely matter.
7. How do I fix CVE-2022-46146?
   • Upgrade github.com/prometheus/exporter-toolkit to 0.8.2 or later
   • Upgrade github.com/prometheus/exporter-toolkit to 0.7.2 or later