Cyber Resilience

CVE-2023-0594

XSS in Grafana 7.0.0 – 8.5.21

Published
01 March 2023
Modified
21 November 2024
Patch / advisory
CVSS Score v3.1 7.3
Click a component to see what it means
Raw vectorCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:N
EPSS Score 0.092 95th percentile
Risk Priority 75 floored blend · peak EPSS

Summary

CVE-2023-0594 is a high-severity Cross-site Scripting (CWE-79) vulnerability in Grafana Grafana. Its CVSS base score is 7.3 (High).

Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique Browser Session Hijacking (T1185); ranked in the top 5% of CVEs by exploit likelihood; it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.

Deeper analysis AI-assisted summary

Synthesised by an AI model from the NVD description and linked references — a reading aid, not an authoritative source.

Grafana, an open-source monitoring and observability platform, contains a stored cross-site scripting vulnerability in its trace view visualization that has existed since the 7.0 release branch. The flaw stems from insufficient sanitization of span attributes and resources, which are rendered without escaping when expanded in the visualization, allowing arbitrary JavaScript to be stored and later executed in users' browsers.

An authenticated user with the Editor role can modify a trace view panel to embed malicious JavaScript in span attributes. When a user with higher privileges, such as an Administrator, subsequently views the affected dashboard, the script executes in their context, enabling vertical privilege escalation such as password changes or other administrative actions.

The official Grafana advisory recommends upgrading to versions 8.5.21, 9.2.13, or 9.3.8 to remediate the issue; a corresponding NetApp advisory (NTAP-20230331-0007) addresses affected downstream products.

EPSS scores for the vulnerability rose from a low baseline to a peak of 0.5200 on 2026-02-03 before receding to the current value of 0.3664, indicating measurable post-disclosure exploitation interest.

OWASP Top 10 for Web (2025)

EU & UK References

Vulnerability Data

Grafana is an open-source platform for monitoring and observability. Starting with the 7.0 branch, Grafana had a stored XSS vulnerability in the trace view visualization. The stored XSS vulnerability was possible due the value of a span's attributes/resources were not…

more

properly sanitized and this will be rendered when the span's attributes/resources are expanded. An attacker needs to have the Editor role in order to change the value of a trace view visualization to contain JavaScript. 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. Users may upgrade to version 8.5.21, 9.2.13 and 9.3.8 to receive a fix.

CWE(s)

Related Threats

MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise Techniques

T1185 Browser Session Hijacking Collection
Adversaries may take advantage of security vulnerabilities and inherent functionality in browser software to change content, modify user-behaviors, and intercept information as part of various browser session hijacking techniques.
T1539 Steal Web Session Cookie Credential Access
An adversary may steal web application or service session cookies and use them to gain access to web applications or Internet services as an authenticated user without needing credentials.
T1659 Content Injection Initial Access
Adversaries may gain access and continuously communicate with victims by injecting malicious content into systems through online network traffic.
T1189 Drive-by Compromise Initial Access
Adversaries may gain access to a system through a user visiting a website over the normal course of browsing.
T1190 Exploit Public-Facing Application Initial Access
Adversaries may attempt to exploit a weakness in an Internet-facing host or system to initially access a network.
Derived from this CVE’s CWE(s) via the direct CWE→ATT&CK cross-walk.

CVEs Like This One

CVE-2023-1410Same product: Grafana Grafana
CVE-2023-22462Same product: Grafana Grafana
CVE-2023-0507Same product: Grafana Grafana
CVE-2022-31097Same product: Grafana Grafana
CVE-2023-3010Same vendor: Grafana
CVE-2023-25837Shared CWE-79
CVE-2023-22438Shared CWE-79
CVE-2023-27614Shared CWE-79
CVE-2023-47164Shared CWE-79
CVE-2023-49145Shared CWE-79

Affected Assets

grafana
grafana
7.0.0 — 8.5.21 · 9.2.0 — 9.2.13 · 9.3.0 — 9.3.8

Mitigating Controls

Control response

Prevent
Stop it (NIST 800-53)

Detect
Catch it (NIST detect / respond)

Harden
Shrink the surface (DISA STIG)

Validate
Prove the fix (OWASP ASVS)
  • V1.1.2
  • V1.3.2

Likely Mitigating Controls AI

Per-CVE control mapping for this CVE has not run yet; the list below is derived from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry.

addresses: CWE-79

Penetration testing submits XSS payloads to web applications, detecting cross-site scripting flaws for subsequent remediation.

addresses: CWE-79

Validates web inputs to reject script-related content that could produce XSS.

addresses: CWE-79

Output validation against expected content can reject or sanitize script content in generated web pages, reducing XSS exploitability.

Mitigating Controls (NIST CSF 2.0) AI

Derived directly from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry via our AI-authored CWE→CSF cross-walk (authority under review) — links open the control.

PR.PS-06 mostly match
prevents

Secure SDLC practices directly target introduction of XSS via coding standards/testing (mostly), yet the single broad outcome leaves many specific neutralization vectors unaddressed (partial).

PR.PS-02 partial match
prevents

Patching and EOL replacement can remediate known XSS instances in libraries or frameworks (partial) but do nothing to enforce input neutralization in application code (none).

Mitigating Controls (ISO/IEC 27001:2022 Annex A) AI

Derived directly from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry via our AI-authored CWE→ISO cross-walk (authority under review) — links open the control.

finds

Secure-coding testing and automated code-analysis tools are applied to detect improper neutralization of script-related content during web-page generation.

prevents

Knowledge exchange on emerging attack techniques and patches reduces the likelihood that cross-site scripting flaws remain unaddressed in deployed applications.

prevents

Operational indicators of compromise for web-application attacks can be incorporated into WAF or input-filtering rules, lowering the likelihood that unsanitized data reaches the browser.

prevents

Requiring language-specific secure-coding standards and automated scanning during the SDLC catches missing output encoding or improper neutralization of untrusted data before the software reaches production.

prevents

Secure-coding standards, SAST scans and removal of insecure code samples together eliminate the failure to neutralize script content that produces cross-site scripting flaws.

none

Webpage malware scanning and block-listing of known malicious sites reduce the likelihood that reflected or stored script payloads reach a user’s browser.

References