CVE-2022-23709 in Kibana
Summary
by MITRE • 03/04/2022
A flaw was discovered in Kibana in which users with Read access to the Uptime feature could modify alerting rules. A user with this privilege would be able to create new alerting rules or overwrite existing ones. However, any new or modified rules would not be enabled, and a user with this privilege could not modify alerting connectors. This effectively means that Read users could disable existing alerting rules.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 03/06/2022
The vulnerability identified as CVE-2022-23709 represents a significant authorization flaw within the Kibana observability platform that undermines the principle of least privilege and proper access control mechanisms. This issue affects the Uptime feature within Kibana, which is designed to monitor the availability and performance of services and applications. The flaw manifests in the form of an insufficient authorization check that allows users with read-only permissions to manipulate alerting configurations, creating a dangerous privilege escalation scenario within the monitoring infrastructure. The vulnerability stems from inadequate validation of user permissions when performing operations related to alerting rules within the Uptime monitoring context, directly violating the security principle that users should only be able to perform actions commensurate with their assigned privileges.
The technical implementation of this vulnerability lies in the authorization logic that governs access to alerting functionality within Kibana's Uptime feature. When users with read access attempt to interact with alerting rules, the system fails to properly validate whether these users possess the necessary administrative privileges to modify existing configurations. This oversight creates a pathway where read-level users can execute operations that should be restricted to users with write or administrative permissions. The flaw specifically affects the ability to create new alerting rules or overwrite existing ones, though the implementation prevents these modifications from being enabled automatically. However, the ability to disable existing alerting rules represents a severe operational impact, as it allows malicious or unauthorized users to effectively silence critical monitoring mechanisms without triggering any alerts or notifications.
From an operational perspective, this vulnerability creates a substantial risk to security monitoring and incident response capabilities within organizations that rely on Kibana's Uptime feature for service availability monitoring. The ability to disable existing alerting rules means that security teams could be blindsided by critical service outages or security incidents that should have triggered automated alerts. This vulnerability particularly impacts the integrity of the monitoring infrastructure, as it allows unauthorized modification of security controls that are essential for maintaining visibility into system health and potential threats. The flaw also has implications for compliance and audit requirements, as it creates a potential avenue for malicious actors to evade detection mechanisms that organizations depend upon for maintaining security posture.
Organizations should implement immediate mitigations to address this vulnerability by ensuring that users with read access to Uptime features do not possess any ability to modify alerting rules, even if those modifications cannot be enabled. The recommended approach involves strengthening authorization checks within the Uptime feature to properly enforce role-based access controls and prevent read-level users from performing write operations on alerting configurations. This remediation aligns with the CWE-284 principle of improper access control and addresses the ATT&CK technique T1070.004 related to indicator removal and T1566.001 for credential access through privilege escalation. Security teams should also conduct comprehensive access control reviews to identify and remediate similar authorization gaps across other monitoring and management features within their Kibana deployments. The vulnerability demonstrates the critical importance of maintaining proper separation of duties and ensuring that monitoring systems themselves cannot be easily compromised by users with limited privileges.