CVE-2025-3260: Grafana Dashboard Auth Bypass Vulnerability

CVE-2025-3260 Overview

A critical authorization bypass vulnerability has been identified in Grafana's dashboard API endpoints (/apis/dashboard.grafana.app/*). This vulnerability allows authenticated users to circumvent dashboard and folder permissions, enabling unauthorized access to sensitive monitoring data. The flaw affects all API versions including v0alpha1, v1alpha1, and v2alpha1.

Critical Impact

Authenticated users can bypass permission controls to view, edit, and delete dashboards and folders across the Grafana instance, regardless of their assigned permissions. Viewers gain read access to all dashboards, while Editors can perform full CRUD operations on any dashboard or folder.

Affected Products

• Grafana Dashboard API (/apis/dashboard.grafana.app/* endpoints)
• Grafana API versions: v0alpha1, v1alpha1, v2alpha1
• Grafana instances with authenticated users (including anonymous users with viewer/editor roles)

Discovery Timeline

• 2025-06-02 - CVE-2025-3260 published to NVD
• 2025-06-02 - Last updated in NVD database

Technical Details for CVE-2025-3260

Vulnerability Analysis

This vulnerability is classified as CWE-863: Incorrect Authorization, where the Grafana application fails to properly enforce permission checks on the dashboard API endpoints. The flaw allows authenticated users to access resources beyond their authorized scope.

The impact varies based on user role:

• Viewers: Can view all dashboards and folders regardless of assigned permissions
• Editors: Can view, edit, and delete all dashboards and folders regardless of permissions, and can create dashboards in any folder
• Anonymous users: When configured with viewer or editor roles, these users are similarly affected by the authorization bypass

Importantly, organization isolation boundaries remain intact, and the vulnerability does not grant access to datasources—limiting the scope to dashboard and folder operations only.

Root Cause

The root cause stems from improper authorization checks within the Grafana dashboard API endpoints. When processing requests to the /apis/dashboard.grafana.app/* endpoints across all alpha API versions, the application fails to validate whether the authenticated user has the necessary permissions to perform the requested operation on the target dashboard or folder resource.

Attack Vector

The vulnerability is exploitable over the network by any authenticated user. An attacker with valid credentials (even with minimal permissions like a Viewer role) can craft API requests directly to the vulnerable endpoints to access dashboards and folders they should not have permission to view or modify.

The attack requires:

1. Valid authentication credentials to the Grafana instance
2. Knowledge of the vulnerable API endpoint paths
3. Target dashboard or folder identifiers

Since the vulnerability affects the API layer, exploitation can be performed programmatically without using the Grafana web interface, making it suitable for automated attacks.

Detection Methods for CVE-2025-3260

Indicators of Compromise

• Unusual API access patterns to /apis/dashboard.grafana.app/* endpoints
• Viewer accounts making requests to dashboards they should not have access to
• Editor accounts modifying or deleting dashboards outside their permitted folders
• Spike in dashboard API requests from specific user accounts
• Access logs showing successful responses to restricted dashboard resources by low-privilege users

Detection Strategies

• Monitor Grafana access logs for anomalous API calls to /apis/dashboard.grafana.app/v0alpha1/*, /apis/dashboard.grafana.app/v1alpha1/*, and /apis/dashboard.grafana.app/v2alpha1/* endpoints
• Implement alerting for users accessing dashboards or folders outside their normal permission scope
• Review audit logs for dashboard modifications by users who should only have viewer permissions
• Correlate user role assignments with actual API access patterns to identify permission bypass attempts

Monitoring Recommendations

• Enable detailed audit logging for all dashboard API endpoints in Grafana
• Configure alerts for dashboard deletion or modification events from Viewer-role accounts
• Implement network-level monitoring for high-volume API requests to the affected endpoints
• Review user access patterns regularly to identify potential exploitation attempts

How to Mitigate CVE-2025-3260

Immediate Actions Required

• Review the Grafana Security Advisory CVE-2025-3260 for official remediation guidance
• Audit current user roles and permissions to understand potential exposure
• Review access logs for evidence of exploitation
• Consider restricting access to the alpha API endpoints at the network level until patched
• Disable anonymous access if it's configured with viewer or editor roles

Patch Information

Grafana has released a security advisory addressing this vulnerability. Organizations should consult the Grafana Security Advisory for the latest patch information and upgrade to the recommended version as soon as possible.

Workarounds

• Implement network-level access controls (firewall rules, reverse proxy rules) to restrict access to the /apis/dashboard.grafana.app/* endpoints
• Disable the alpha API versions if not required for production use
• Enforce strict network segmentation to limit who can reach the Grafana API endpoints
• Temporarily disable anonymous authentication until the patch is applied
• Use API gateway or WAF rules to block unauthorized access patterns to the vulnerable endpoints

# Example: Nginx reverse proxy rule to restrict access to vulnerable endpoints
# Add to your Grafana reverse proxy configuration
location ~* ^/apis/dashboard\.grafana\.app/ {
    # Restrict access to admin IP ranges only
    allow 10.0.0.0/8;
    deny all;
    
    proxy_pass http://grafana:3000;
    proxy_set_header Host $host;
    proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
}