CVE-2023-4822: Grafana Privilege Escalation Vulnerability

CVE-2023-4822 Overview

CVE-2023-4822 is a privilege escalation vulnerability affecting Grafana, the popular open-source platform for monitoring and observability. This vulnerability impacts Grafana instances configured with multiple organizations and allows a user with Organization Admin permissions in one organization to manipulate the permissions associated with Organization Viewer, Organization Editor, and Organization Admin roles across all organizations in the instance.

The vulnerability enables an Organization Admin to assign or revoke any permissions they possess to any user globally within the Grafana instance. This means any Organization Admin can elevate their own permissions in any organization where they already hold membership, or modify the permissions of other users—either escalating or restricting their access levels.

Critical Impact

Organization Admins can escalate their privileges across multiple organizations and modify permissions for any user globally, potentially leading to unauthorized access to sensitive monitoring data and dashboard configurations.

Affected Products

• Grafana Enterprise (multiple versions)
• Grafana Open Source (multi-organization configurations)
• Grafana instances with version 10.1.4 and earlier vulnerable releases

Discovery Timeline

• October 16, 2023 - CVE-2023-4822 published to NVD
• June 16, 2025 - Last updated in NVD database

Technical Details for CVE-2023-4822

Vulnerability Analysis

This vulnerability stems from improper privilege management (CWE-269) within Grafana's multi-organization architecture. When Grafana is configured to support multiple organizations, each organization maintains its own set of roles and permissions. The vulnerability occurs because the authorization checks for role and permission modifications do not properly validate whether the requesting Organization Admin has legitimate authority over the target organization.

The flaw allows an attacker with Organization Admin privileges in any single organization to bypass organizational boundaries and manipulate role assignments across the entire Grafana instance. While the attacker cannot add themselves or others to organizations where they have no existing membership, they can significantly impact the security posture of any organization where they maintain even minimal access.

Root Cause

The root cause of CVE-2023-4822 is an improper access control implementation in Grafana's role management functionality. The authorization logic fails to enforce organizational boundaries when processing permission modification requests. Specifically, the backend does not adequately verify that an Organization Admin's scope of authority is limited to their own organization when handling role assignment operations.

This represents a broken access control vulnerability where privilege checks are insufficient, allowing horizontal and vertical privilege escalation within the constraints of existing organizational memberships.

Attack Vector

The attack is network-accessible and requires high privileges (Organization Admin role) but no user interaction. An attacker who has obtained Organization Admin credentials—whether through legitimate means, credential theft, or insider threat—can exploit this vulnerability through Grafana's administrative interfaces.

The exploitation scenario involves:

1. Authenticating to Grafana with Organization Admin credentials for any organization
2. Leveraging the administrative APIs or UI to modify role permissions across organizations
3. Escalating personal privileges in other organizations where membership exists
4. Optionally restricting other users' permissions to consolidate access control

Since no proof-of-concept code is publicly available, the specific API endpoints and request structures should be referenced in the Grafana Security Advisory CVE-2023-4822 for technical implementation details.

Detection Methods for CVE-2023-4822

Indicators of Compromise

• Unexpected changes to organization role permissions, particularly affecting Organization Viewer, Editor, or Admin roles
• Audit log entries showing permission modifications by Organization Admins targeting users or roles outside their primary organization
• Users reporting sudden loss of access or unexpected privilege elevations
• Cross-organization permission changes occurring without corresponding change management tickets

Detection Strategies

• Monitor Grafana audit logs for role assignment and permission modification events, correlating the actor's organization membership with the target organization
• Implement alerting on any Organization Admin actions that affect users or roles in organizations other than their primary assignment
• Periodically review role assignments across all organizations to identify anomalous privilege configurations
• Deploy SIEM rules to detect patterns of privilege escalation attempts within Grafana logs

Monitoring Recommendations

• Enable comprehensive audit logging in Grafana and forward logs to a centralized SIEM solution
• Create baseline reports of normal administrative activity patterns for each Organization Admin
• Implement real-time alerting for cross-organizational administrative actions
• Review Grafana access logs regularly for signs of reconnaissance or enumeration activities

How to Mitigate CVE-2023-4822

Immediate Actions Required

• Upgrade Grafana to the latest patched version as specified in the vendor security advisory
• Audit all Organization Admin accounts and verify legitimate business need for elevated privileges
• Review recent role and permission changes across all organizations to identify potential exploitation
• Consider temporarily restricting Organization Admin permissions to essential personnel only

Patch Information

Grafana has released security patches to address CVE-2023-4822. Organizations should consult the Grafana Security Advisory CVE-2023-4822 for specific version information and upgrade guidance. Additional vendor impact information is available in the NetApp Security Advisory NTAP-20231103-0008.

Upgrading to the latest stable release is the recommended remediation approach. Organizations using Grafana Enterprise should coordinate with their Grafana support contacts for enterprise-specific guidance.

Workarounds

• Reduce the number of Organization Admin accounts to minimize the attack surface
• Implement network-level access controls to restrict administrative access to trusted networks or VPN connections
• Enable and monitor audit logging to detect any unauthorized permission changes
• Consider consolidating to a single-organization deployment if multi-organization functionality is not required

# Configuration example
# Review current Organization Admin accounts in Grafana
# Access Grafana CLI or database to audit privileged accounts

# Check Grafana version
grafana-cli --version

# Review organization memberships via API (requires admin token)
curl -H "Authorization: Bearer $GRAFANA_API_TOKEN" \
  "https://your-grafana-instance/api/orgs"

# Enable audit logging in grafana.ini
# [log]
# filters = auth:debug authproxy:debug