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Atomicorp WAF Research Note: CVE-2021-41174

Grafana 8.0.0 <= v.8.2.2 - Angularjs Rendering Cross-Site Scripting

CVE Details

Status: Attack Blocked by Atomicorp
Technical CPE data

This section lists vulnerable CPE matches retained from the NVD configurations. It supplements the readable affected-product information above.

  • cpe:2.3:a:grafana:grafana:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
    • Version start (inclusive): 8.0.0
    • Version end (exclusive): 8.2.3
    • NVD match criteria ID: A9B9C101-2003-4213-9B6D-B92CDD6C3370

Vulnerability Description

Grafana is an open-source platform for monitoring and observability. In affected versions if an attacker is able to convince a victim to visit a URL referencing a vulnerable page, arbitrary JavaScript content may be executed within the context of the victim’s browser. The user visiting the malicious link must be unauthenticated and the link must be for a page that contains the login button in the menu bar. The url has to be crafted to exploit AngularJS rendering and contain the interpolation binding for AngularJS expressions. AngularJS uses double curly braces for interpolation binding: {{ }} ex: {{constructor.constructor(‘alert(1)’)()}}. When the user follows the link and the page renders, the login button will contain the original link with a query parameter to force a redirect to the login page. The URL is not validated and the AngularJS rendering engine will execute the JavaScript expression contained in the URL. Users are advised to upgrade as soon as possible. If for some reason you cannot upgrade, you can use a reverse proxy or similar to block access to block the literal string {{ in the path.

  1. Maintain the observed Atomicorp protections. Keep your Atomicorp commercial rules current and confirm that the selected observed rules (346755 ) have not been locally disabled. Atomicorp commercial rules are enabled by default. If you use Atomic WAF, review the applicable policy and rule settings.

  2. Apply the vendor’s remediation. WAF protection is defense in depth and does not replace upgrading or following the affected vendor’s guidance.

  3. Validate after changes. Confirm rule updates are current, review WAF events for the affected application, and test application behavior after vendor upgrades, mitigations, or local policy changes.

Research Notes

Atomicorp WAF protections are designed around attack techniques and exploit behaviors, allowing existing protections to apply across multiple vulnerabilities without requiring a unique rule for every CVE.

Public Vulnerability References

Test or Research Source

Research Note Context

This research note documents exploit-technique analysis associated with this vulnerability and references Atomicorp WAF protections observed during engineering review, testing, or validation activities.

Atomicorp security controls are generally designed to identify and mitigate attack techniques and exploit behaviors rather than individual CVE identifiers. As a result, protections developed for one vulnerability may also apply to related attack variants and future vulnerabilities using similar techniques.

Learn More

Atomicorp develops commercially supported security technologies for web applications, servers, endpoints, workloads, and legacy enterprise platforms.

Organizations interested in protecting systems against exploit techniques associated with vulnerabilities such as this one can learn more about:

  • Atomic ModSecurity Rules: commercially maintained WAF rules for ModSecurity deployments, including protections for web attacks, bots, scanners, malware, exploitation attempts, and emerging vulnerability classes.
  • Atomic WAF: an enterprise web application firewall with Atomicorp rules, centralized management, reporting, authentication controls, and operational tooling.
  • Atomic ModSecurity Integrator: a special licensing option for MSPs, MSSPs, OEMs, VARs, reverse proxy providers, and other integrators who want to incorporate Atomicorp ModSecurity rule technology into their own products or services.
  • Atomic OSSEC: an enterprise OSSEC-based intrusion detection, compliance, and security monitoring platform.
  • Atomic Protector: workload protection for Linux, web, cloud, data center, and hybrid environments.

For additional information, product evaluations, or technical discussions, visit https://www.atomicorp.com/ or https://modsecurity.io/ .