CVE-2016-1000218 in Reporting Plugin
Summary
by MITRE
Kibana Reporting plugin version 2.4.0 is vulnerable to a CSRF vulnerability that could allow an attacker to generate superfluous reports whenever an authenticated Kibana user navigates to a specially-crafted page.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 10/18/2019
The vulnerability identified as CVE-2016-1000218 affects the Kibana Reporting plugin version 2.4.0 and represents a cross-site request forgery flaw that undermines the security integrity of authenticated user sessions. This vulnerability resides within the reporting functionality of Kibana, a popular open-source data visualization and analytics platform that operates on top of Elasticsearch. The reporting plugin enables users to generate and export various types of reports from their Kibana dashboards and visualizations, making it a critical component for business intelligence and monitoring operations.
The technical flaw manifests through the absence of proper anti-CSRF mechanisms within the reporting plugin's request handling process. When an authenticated user accesses a maliciously crafted web page, the vulnerability allows an attacker to inject requests that trigger report generation without the user's explicit consent or knowledge. This occurs because the plugin fails to validate the origin of requests or implement token-based authentication checks that would normally prevent unauthorized actions from being executed on behalf of authenticated users. The vulnerability specifically impacts the reporting functionality, where users can create PDF, PNG, and other report formats, but the CSRF attack vector enables unauthorized generation of these reports.
The operational impact of this vulnerability extends beyond simple report generation, as it can lead to resource exhaustion, unauthorized data access, and potential information leakage. Attackers can leverage this vulnerability to consume excessive system resources through automated report generation, potentially causing denial of service conditions for legitimate users. Additionally, since reports may contain sensitive data extracted from Kibana dashboards, unauthorized report generation could expose confidential information to malicious actors. The vulnerability affects all authenticated users of the affected Kibana instance, making it particularly dangerous in environments where multiple users have access to sensitive data.
Organizations should implement immediate mitigations including upgrading to patched versions of the Kibana Reporting plugin, implementing proper CSRF token validation mechanisms, and configuring web application firewalls to detect and block suspicious request patterns. The vulnerability aligns with CWE-352, which specifically addresses cross-site request forgery vulnerabilities, and falls under ATT&CK technique T1078 for valid accounts and T1566 for credential access through social engineering. Security teams should also consider implementing additional monitoring for unusual report generation patterns and establishing proper access controls to limit report creation privileges to authorized personnel only. The incident highlights the critical importance of maintaining up-to-date software versions and implementing comprehensive security controls for all components within enterprise data visualization platforms.