CVE-2022-21703 is a Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF) vulnerability affecting multiple versions of Grafana, an open-source platform widely used for monitoring and observability. The vulnerability exists in Grafana versions from 3.0-beta1 up to but not including 7.5.15, and from 8.0.0 up to but not including 8.3.5. The flaw allows an attacker to exploit the trust relationship between an authenticated high-privilege user (such as an Editor or Admin) and the Grafana server by tricking the user into executing unintended actions. Specifically, the attacker can craft malicious cross-origin requests that, when executed by an authenticated user, enable privilege escalation by inviting the attacker as a new user with elevated privileges. This attack vector requires the victim to be authenticated and to interact with a malicious web page or link controlled by the attacker. There are no known workarounds, and remediation requires upgrading to a patched Grafana version beyond 7.5.15 or 8.3.5 respectively. While no exploits have been observed in the wild, the vulnerability poses a significant risk due to the potential for unauthorized privilege escalation within Grafana environments, which could lead to further compromise of monitoring infrastructure and sensitive operational data. The vulnerability is categorized under CWE-352, indicating a failure to properly validate the origin of requests, allowing unauthorized state-changing operations via CSRF.

For European organizations, the impact of this vulnerability can be substantial, especially for those relying on Grafana for critical monitoring and observability of IT infrastructure, industrial control systems, or cloud environments. Successful exploitation could allow attackers to gain administrative access to Grafana instances, enabling them to manipulate dashboards, alter monitoring data, disable alerts, or create backdoors through user account manipulation. This could lead to undetected system failures, delayed incident response, and potential data breaches. Organizations in sectors such as finance, manufacturing, energy, and telecommunications—where monitoring platforms are integral to operational continuity—are particularly at risk. The compromise of Grafana could also serve as a pivot point for lateral movement within internal networks, increasing the risk of broader cyberattacks. Given the absence of known exploits in the wild, the immediate risk might be moderate; however, the ease of exploitation through social engineering and the high privileges that can be gained elevate the threat level. The lack of workarounds further exacerbates the risk, making timely patching critical to prevent potential privilege escalation and subsequent operational disruption.

1. Immediate upgrade of all affected Grafana instances to versions 7.5.15 or later, or 8.3.5 or later, where the vulnerability has been patched. 2. Implement strict Content Security Policy (CSP) headers and SameSite cookie attributes to reduce the risk of CSRF attacks by limiting cross-origin requests. 3. Enforce multi-factor authentication (MFA) for all high-privilege Grafana users to reduce the risk of account compromise. 4. Conduct user awareness training focused on phishing and social engineering to reduce the likelihood of users interacting with malicious links or web pages. 5. Regularly audit Grafana user accounts and permissions to detect unauthorized privilege escalations or suspicious user invitations. 6. Where possible, restrict access to Grafana dashboards and APIs via network segmentation and IP whitelisting to limit exposure to untrusted networks. 7. Monitor Grafana logs for unusual user invitation activities or administrative changes that could indicate exploitation attempts. These measures, combined with prompt patching, will significantly reduce the risk posed by this CSRF vulnerability.