Grafana SQL Expressions Vulnerability: Command Injection and Local File Inclusion Risks

What is CVE-2024-9264?

CVE-2024-9264 is a significant vulnerability affecting Grafana, a popular open-source analytics and monitoring platform widely used for visualizing time series data. This vulnerability lies in the SQL Expressions experimental feature, which improperly handles user inputs in duckdb queries, leading to potential command injection and local file inclusion risks. Organizations utilizing Grafana for data monitoring and visualization may face severe repercussions, as any user with VIEWER permissions or higher can exploit this vulnerability to manipulate the system and potentially access sensitive files, thus impacting data integrity and security.

Technical Details

The vulnerability arises from insufficient sanitization of user input being processed by the SQL Expressions feature, which allows users to execute queries against the duckdb database. As the queries lack proper validation before being passed to duckdb, attackers can craft malicious inputs to execute arbitrary commands or read local files from the server. For this exploit to succeed, the duckdb binary must be available in Grafana's system PATH, although it is not included in Grafana's default distribution.

Impact of the Vulnerability

1. Command Injection Risk: Attackers can exploit this vulnerability to execute arbitrary commands on the server running Grafana, giving them potential control over system functions and operations.

2. Local File Inclusion: The vulnerability can enable malicious actors to access and read sensitive files from the server, including configuration files and credentials, which can lead to further intrusions or data leaks.

3. Unauthorized Access: Since users with as little as VIEWER permissions can exploit this vulnerability, it significantly expands the attack surface, allowing a broader range of individuals to potentially compromise the system's security.

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