Summary
Grafana vulnerable to Stored Cross-site Scripting in Text plugin
Full technical description
Description
On 2023-01-01 during an internal audit of Grafana, a member of the security team found a stored XSS vulnerability affecting the core plugin "Text".
The stored XSS vulnerability requires several user interactions in order to be fully exploited. The vulnerability was possible due to React's render cycle that will pass though the unsanitized HTML code, but in the next cycle the HTML is cleaned up and saved in Grafana's database.
Impacted versions
Grafana versions between 9.2.0 and 9.2.10. and between 9.3.0 and 9.3.4
Solutions and mitigations
Update your Grafana instance.
Reporting security issues
If you think you have found a security vulnerability, please send a report to [email protected]. This address can be used for all of Grafana Labs' open source and commercial products (including, but not limited to Grafana, Grafana Cloud, Grafana Enterprise, and grafana.com). We can accept only vulnerability reports at this address. We would prefer that you encrypt your message to us by using our PGP key. The key fingerprint is
F988 7BEA 027A 049F AE8E 5CAA D125 8932 BE24 C5CA
The key is available from keyserver.ubuntu.com.
Security announcements
We maintain a security category on our blog, where we will always post a summary, remediation, and mitigation details for any patch containing security fixes.
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Impact
An attacker needs to have the Editor role in order to change a Text panel to include JavaScript. later, an another user needs to edit the same Text panel, and click on "Markdown" or "HTML" for the code to be executed. This means that vertical privilege escalation is possible, where a user with Editor role can change to a known password for a user having Admin role if the user with Admin role executes malicious JavaScript viewing a dashboard.
Untrusted input is rendered as active markup in a victim's browser, which can run script in their session. Typical impact: session or credential theft, and actions taken as the user.
CVE-2023-22462 has a CVSS score of 6.4 (Medium). The vector is network-reachable, low privileges required, and user interaction required. 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 (9.2.10, 9.3.4); upgrading removes the vulnerable code path.
Affected versions
Security releases
Kodem intelligence
Severity tells you how bad this could be in the worst case. It does not tell you whether you are exposed. Exploitability and impact are functions of runtime truth: whether the vulnerable code is present, reachable, and actually executes in your application. A vulnerable package can sit in your dependency tree and never run.
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. Kodem's runtime-powered SCA identifies whether this CVE is reachable in your applications.
Remediation advice
github.com/grafana/grafana to 9.2.10 or later; github.com/grafana/grafana to 9.3.4 or later
Kodem Kai can prioritize this vulnerability in your dependency tree and generate a fix recommendation.
Frequently Asked Questions
- What is CVE-2023-22462? CVE-2023-22462 is a medium-severity cross-site scripting (XSS) vulnerability in github.com/grafana/grafana (go), affecting versions >= 9.2.0, < 9.2.10. It is fixed in 9.2.10, 9.3.4. Untrusted input is rendered as active markup in a victim's browser, which can run script in their session.
- How severe is CVE-2023-22462? CVE-2023-22462 has a CVSS score of 6.4 (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.
- Which versions of github.com/grafana/grafana are affected by CVE-2023-22462? github.com/grafana/grafana (go) versions >= 9.2.0, < 9.2.10 is affected.
- Is there a fix for CVE-2023-22462? Yes. CVE-2023-22462 is fixed in 9.2.10, 9.3.4. Upgrade to this version or later.
- Is CVE-2023-22462 exploitable, and should I be worried? Whether CVE-2023-22462 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
- What actually determines whether CVE-2023-22462 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.
- How do I fix CVE-2023-22462?
- Upgrade
github.com/grafana/grafanato 9.2.10 or later - Upgrade
github.com/grafana/grafanato 9.3.4 or later
- Upgrade