Grafana Path Traversal Exploitation CVE-2021-43798

Status: test
Severity: critical
Log source: category webserver
Author: Florian Roth (Nextron Systems)
Source: github.com/SigmaHQ/sigma

Detects a successful Grafana path traversal exploitation

MITRE ATT&CK coverage

Tactic	Techniques
Initial Access	`T1190` Exploit Public-Facing Application

Rule body yaml

title: Grafana Path Traversal Exploitation CVE-2021-43798
id: 7b72b328-5708-414f-9a2a-6a6867c26e16
status: test
description: Detects a successful Grafana path traversal exploitation
references:
    - https://grafana.com/blog/2021/12/07/grafana-8.3.1-8.2.7-8.1.8-and-8.0.7-released-with-high-severity-security-fix/
    - https://github.com/search?q=CVE-2021-43798
author: Florian Roth (Nextron Systems)
date: 2021-12-08
modified: 2023-01-02
tags:
    - attack.initial-access
    - attack.t1190
    - cve.2021-43798
    - detection.emerging-threats
logsource:
    category: webserver
detection:
    selection_traversal:
        cs-uri-query|contains: '/../../../../../../../'
        sc-status: 200
    selection_plugins:
        cs-uri-query|contains:
            - '/public/plugins/live'
            - '/public/plugins/icon'
            - '/public/plugins/loki'
            - '/public/plugins/text'
            - '/public/plugins/logs'
            - '/public/plugins/news'
            - '/public/plugins/stat'
            - '/public/plugins/mssql'
            - '/public/plugins/mixed'
            - '/public/plugins/mysql'
            - '/public/plugins/tempo'
            - '/public/plugins/graph'
            - '/public/plugins/gauge'
            - '/public/plugins/table'
            - '/public/plugins/debug'
            - '/public/plugins/zipkin'
            - '/public/plugins/jaeger'
            - '/public/plugins/geomap'
            - '/public/plugins/canvas'
            - '/public/plugins/grafana'
            - '/public/plugins/welcome'
            - '/public/plugins/xychart'
            - '/public/plugins/heatmap'
            - '/public/plugins/postgres'
            - '/public/plugins/testdata'
            - '/public/plugins/opentsdb'
            - '/public/plugins/influxdb'
            - '/public/plugins/barchart'
            - '/public/plugins/annolist'
            - '/public/plugins/bargauge'
            - '/public/plugins/graphite'
            - '/public/plugins/dashlist'
            - '/public/plugins/piechart'
            - '/public/plugins/dashboard'
            - '/public/plugins/nodeGraph'
            - '/public/plugins/alertlist'
            - '/public/plugins/histogram'
            - '/public/plugins/table-old'
            - '/public/plugins/pluginlist'
            - '/public/plugins/timeseries'
            - '/public/plugins/cloudwatch'
            - '/public/plugins/prometheus'
            - '/public/plugins/stackdriver'
            - '/public/plugins/alertGroups'
            - '/public/plugins/alertmanager'
            - '/public/plugins/elasticsearch'
            - '/public/plugins/gettingstarted'
            - '/public/plugins/state-timeline'
            - '/public/plugins/status-history'
            - '/public/plugins/grafana-clock-panel'
            - '/public/plugins/grafana-simple-json-datasource'
            - '/public/plugins/grafana-azure-monitor-datasource'
    condition: all of selection*
falsepositives:
    - Vulnerability scanners that scan a host that returns 200 status codes even in cases of a file not found or other error
level: critical

Stages and Predicates

Stage 0: `condition`

all of selection*

Stage 1: `selection_traversal`

selection_traversal:
    cs-uri-query|contains: '/../../../../../../../'
    sc-status: 200

Stage 2: `selection_plugins`

selection_plugins:
    cs-uri-query|contains:
        - '/public/plugins/live'
        - '/public/plugins/icon'
        - '/public/plugins/loki'
        - '/public/plugins/text'
        - '/public/plugins/logs'
        - '/public/plugins/news'
        - '/public/plugins/stat'
        - '/public/plugins/mssql'
        - '/public/plugins/mixed'
        - '/public/plugins/mysql'
        - '/public/plugins/tempo'
        - '/public/plugins/graph'
        - '/public/plugins/gauge'
        - '/public/plugins/table'
        - '/public/plugins/debug'
        - '/public/plugins/zipkin'
        - '/public/plugins/jaeger'
        - '/public/plugins/geomap'
        - '/public/plugins/canvas'
        - '/public/plugins/grafana'
        - '/public/plugins/welcome'
        - '/public/plugins/xychart'
        - '/public/plugins/heatmap'
        - '/public/plugins/postgres'
        - '/public/plugins/testdata'
        - '/public/plugins/opentsdb'
        - '/public/plugins/influxdb'
        - '/public/plugins/barchart'
        - '/public/plugins/annolist'
        - '/public/plugins/bargauge'
        - '/public/plugins/graphite'
        - '/public/plugins/dashlist'
        - '/public/plugins/piechart'
        - '/public/plugins/dashboard'
        - '/public/plugins/nodeGraph'
        - '/public/plugins/alertlist'
        - '/public/plugins/histogram'
        - '/public/plugins/table-old'
        - '/public/plugins/pluginlist'
        - '/public/plugins/timeseries'
        - '/public/plugins/cloudwatch'
        - '/public/plugins/prometheus'
        - '/public/plugins/stackdriver'
        - '/public/plugins/alertGroups'
        - '/public/plugins/alertmanager'
        - '/public/plugins/elasticsearch'
        - '/public/plugins/gettingstarted'
        - '/public/plugins/state-timeline'
        - '/public/plugins/status-history'
        - '/public/plugins/grafana-clock-panel'
        - '/public/plugins/grafana-simple-json-datasource'
        - '/public/plugins/grafana-azure-monitor-datasource'

Indicators

Each row is a field, operator, and value that the rule matches. The corpus column counts how many other rules in the catalog look for the same combination: high numbers point to widely-used, community-vetted indicators. Blank or 1 shows that the indicator is specific to this rule.

Field	Kind	Values
`cs-uri-query`	match	`/../../../../../../../` `/public/plugins/alertGroups` `/public/plugins/alertlist` `/public/plugins/alertmanager` `/public/plugins/annolist` `/public/plugins/barchart` `/public/plugins/bargauge` `/public/plugins/canvas` `/public/plugins/cloudwatch` `/public/plugins/dashboard` `/public/plugins/dashlist` `/public/plugins/debug` `/public/plugins/elasticsearch` `/public/plugins/gauge` `/public/plugins/geomap` `/public/plugins/gettingstarted` `/public/plugins/grafana` `/public/plugins/grafana-azure-monitor-datasource` `/public/plugins/grafana-clock-panel` `/public/plugins/grafana-simple-json-datasource` `/public/plugins/graph` `/public/plugins/graphite` `/public/plugins/heatmap` `/public/plugins/histogram` `/public/plugins/icon` `/public/plugins/influxdb` `/public/plugins/jaeger` `/public/plugins/live` `/public/plugins/logs` `/public/plugins/loki` `/public/plugins/mixed` `/public/plugins/mssql` `/public/plugins/mysql` `/public/plugins/news` `/public/plugins/nodeGraph` `/public/plugins/opentsdb` `/public/plugins/piechart` `/public/plugins/pluginlist` `/public/plugins/postgres` `/public/plugins/prometheus` `/public/plugins/stackdriver` `/public/plugins/stat` `/public/plugins/state-timeline` `/public/plugins/status-history` `/public/plugins/table` `/public/plugins/table-old` `/public/plugins/tempo` `/public/plugins/testdata` `/public/plugins/text` `/public/plugins/timeseries` `/public/plugins/welcome` `/public/plugins/xychart` `/public/plugins/zipkin`
`sc-status`	eq	`200`

`j` / `k`	Scroll down / up
`d` / `u`	Half-page down / up
`gg` / `G`	Top / bottom
`h` / `l`	History back / forward
`f`	Follow link (`Shift` = new tab)
`/`	Focus search
`?`	Toggle this help
`↑` / `↓`	Navigate search results
`Enter`	Open highlighted result
`Esc`	Close results / dialog

`type:`	`events` / `rules` / `providers`
`vendor:`	`sigma` / `elastic` / `splunk` / `kusto` / `chronicle` (vendor name alone also works: `sigma:`, `kql:`, `secops:`…)
`tactic:`	TA-id, slug, or name: `credential_access`, `TA0006`
`technique:`	technique or sub-technique ID: `T1003`, `T1003.001` (alias `tech:`)
`severity:`	`critical` / `high` / `medium` / `low` / `informational` (alias `sev:`)
`risk_score`	Numeric comparison on the Elastic risk score (0 to 100): `risk_score>50`, `risk_score<=20`, `risk_score=99` (alias `risk`; Elastic rules only)
`stages:`	Rules with exactly N pipeline stages
`correlation:`	`single_event` / `sequence` / `alternatives` / `alternatives_cross_log` / `all_required` / `correlated`
`with:`	Co-occurrence event-id; stacks (`with:4624 with:4769`) to require all, while a comma list in one occurrence (`with:4624,4769`) is an either-or group. Implies multi-event
`like:`	Structural neighbors of a rule slug (equivalents + subsumption stricter / broader): `like:comsvcs_lsass_memory_dump-splunk-sysmon`
`groupby:`	Entity-grouping substring match against `group_by_keys`: `groupby:user`, `groupby:host`
`uses:`	Rules whose predicate tree touches the field (any kind, any value): `uses:CommandLine`
`excludes:`	Rules with top-level `not()` clauses on the field (FP whitelists): `excludes:ParentImage`
`field:` / `value:`	Predicate search; narrows rule cards to those with a matching leaf and drives the indicator tier. Unquoted = substring, wildcards allowed (`value:mimikatz`)
`indicator:`	Shorthand for `field:F value:V`: `indicator:Image=*\powershell.exe`
`kind:`	Filter by predicate kind. Narrows rule cards to those carrying a matching predicate leaf (`vendor:elastic kind:cidr_match`) and drives the indicator tier: `contains` / `starts_with` / `ends_with` / `regex` / `cidr` / `eq` / `in` … (operator aliases `op:`/`match:`)
`has:` / `no:`	`sample`, `field`, `notes`, `refs`, `trace`, `thirdparty`, `rule`, `pattern`, `timewindow`, `threshold`, `newterms`, `sigma`/`elastic`/`splunk`/`kusto`/`chronicle`
`-op:val`	Exclude matches; works on most operators but not `type:`/`like:`/`has:`/`no:` (use `no:<flag>` to exclude a rule flag): `tactic:execution -vendor:splunk`. Standalone `-kind:`/`-field:`/`-value:` drop every rule carrying a matching predicate leaf (`type:rules -kind:is_null`)
`field:"…"` / `value:"…"`	Quoted value = anchored exact match (also allows spaces): `value:"net user"`
`a,b`	Comma = OR inside one operator (`vendor:sigma,elastic`, `severity:high,critical`); repeating a facet merges the same way. `field:`/`value:` never split (literal commas)
`vendors:` / `stage:`	Singular and plural spellings fold to the canonical operator and value: `tactics:` = `tactic:`, `type:event` = `type:events`, `correlation:sequences` = `correlation:sequence`, `has:thresholds` = `has:threshold`
`"quoted phrase"`	Exact-match a multi-word phrase (free text)

Grafana Path Traversal Exploitation CVE-2021-43798

MITRE ATT&CK coverage

Rule body yaml

Stages and Predicates

Stage 0: `condition`

Stage 1: `selection_traversal`

Stage 2: `selection_plugins`

Indicators

Keyboard shortcuts

Search operators

Grafana Path Traversal Exploitation CVE-2021-43798

MITRE ATT&CK coverage

Rule body yaml

Stages and Predicates

Stage 0: condition

Stage 1: selection_traversal

Stage 2: selection_plugins

Indicators

Stage 0: `condition`

Stage 1: `selection_traversal`

Stage 2: `selection_plugins`