CVE-2022-36062 is a medium-severity vulnerability affecting the open-source monitoring and observability platform Grafana, specifically versions prior to 8.5.13, between 9.0.0 and 9.0.9, and between 9.1.0 and 9.1.6. The vulnerability arises from improper preservation of permissions (CWE-281) during the migration process when Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) is enabled after being previously disabled. In affected Grafana instances, folders that originally had only Admin permissions are incorrectly migrated such that additional permissions for Editors and Viewers are granted. This results in unintended privilege escalation, allowing users with Editor or Viewer roles to gain access rights that were originally reserved exclusively for Admins. The root cause is that the migration logic does not properly handle the scenario where Admin is the sole permission on a folder, leading to an over-permissive assignment of roles. This flaw can compromise the integrity and confidentiality of monitoring data and dashboards by allowing unauthorized users to view or modify sensitive information. The vulnerability does not require user interaction or authentication changes beyond existing user roles but exploits misconfiguration during RBAC enablement. No known exploits have been reported in the wild, and patches addressing this issue were released in Grafana versions 8.5.13, 9.0.9, and 9.1.6. A manual workaround involves removing the improperly assigned Editor and Viewer permissions from affected folders or dashboards.

For European organizations, this vulnerability poses a risk to the confidentiality and integrity of critical monitoring and observability data managed via Grafana. Unauthorized modification or viewing of dashboards could lead to exposure of sensitive operational metrics, infrastructure status, or security monitoring data, potentially aiding attackers in lateral movement or evading detection. Organizations relying on Grafana for infrastructure monitoring, application performance, or security analytics may face increased risk of insider threats or privilege abuse if RBAC was enabled after initial deployment without proper migration validation. The impact is heightened in sectors with stringent data protection requirements such as finance, healthcare, and critical infrastructure, where unauthorized access to monitoring data could violate compliance mandates like GDPR or NIS Directive. However, availability impact is limited as the vulnerability does not directly cause service disruption. The absence of known exploits reduces immediate risk but does not eliminate the threat, especially in environments with complex user role management and legacy configurations.

To mitigate this vulnerability, European organizations should prioritize upgrading Grafana instances to versions 8.5.13, 9.0.9, or 9.1.6 or later, where the issue is patched. For environments where immediate upgrade is not feasible, administrators must audit folder and dashboard permissions, specifically checking for folders where only Admin permissions were originally assigned. Any additional Editor or Viewer permissions added post-RBAC enablement should be manually removed to restore intended access controls. Implementing automated scripts or queries to identify such permission anomalies can improve remediation efficiency. Organizations should also review their RBAC enablement procedures to ensure proper migration steps are followed and validated. Additionally, enforcing strict access controls on Grafana administration interfaces and monitoring permission changes through logging and alerting can help detect unauthorized privilege escalations. Finally, integrating Grafana access management with centralized identity and access management (IAM) solutions can reduce risks associated with manual permission misconfigurations.