CVE-2022-31097 is a stored cross-site scripting (XSS) vulnerability affecting multiple versions of Grafana, an open-source platform widely used for monitoring and observability. The vulnerability exists in the Unified Alerting feature of Grafana versions 8.x and 9.x prior to 9.0.3, 8.5.9, 8.4.10, and 8.3.10. Specifically, improper neutralization of input during web page generation (CWE-79) allows an attacker to inject malicious scripts that are stored and later executed in the context of an authenticated user's browser. Exploitation requires an attacker to trick an authenticated administrator into clicking a crafted link, which then executes the malicious script. This can lead to privilege escalation from an editor role to an administrator role, thereby granting the attacker full control over the Grafana instance. The vulnerability does not require the attacker to have initial admin privileges but does require the victim to be an authenticated admin who interacts with the malicious payload. The vendor has released patches in versions 9.0.3, 8.5.9, 8.4.10, and 8.3.10 to remediate the issue. As a temporary mitigation, disabling the Unified Alerting feature or reverting to legacy alerting is recommended. There are no known exploits in the wild at the time of this analysis.

For European organizations, this vulnerability poses a significant risk to the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of monitoring infrastructure. Grafana is commonly used in critical IT environments across sectors such as finance, manufacturing, energy, and public services. Successful exploitation could allow attackers to escalate privileges, manipulate monitoring dashboards, alter alerting rules, or disable alerts, potentially masking malicious activities or causing operational disruptions. This could lead to delayed detection of cyber incidents, data breaches, or system outages. Given the role of Grafana in real-time monitoring, the integrity of alerting data is crucial for incident response and compliance with regulations such as GDPR. Compromise of Grafana instances could also facilitate lateral movement within networks, increasing the overall attack surface. The requirement for an authenticated admin victim reduces the attack surface but does not eliminate risk, especially in environments with multiple administrators or where phishing and social engineering are prevalent.

1. Immediate upgrade to patched Grafana versions 9.0.3, 8.5.9, 8.4.10, or 8.3.10 to fully remediate the vulnerability. 2. If immediate patching is not feasible, disable the Unified Alerting feature or switch to legacy alerting to prevent exploitation. 3. Implement strict access controls and multi-factor authentication (MFA) for all Grafana administrator accounts to reduce the risk of credential compromise and unauthorized access. 4. Conduct targeted phishing awareness training for administrators to mitigate the risk of social engineering attacks that could lead to clicking malicious links. 5. Monitor Grafana logs and alerting configurations for unusual changes or suspicious activity indicative of exploitation attempts. 6. Employ Content Security Policy (CSP) headers and other web application security controls to limit the impact of potential XSS payloads. 7. Regularly audit user roles and permissions within Grafana to ensure least privilege principles are enforced. 8. Network segmentation of monitoring infrastructure to limit exposure of Grafana instances to untrusted networks.