⚠️ THREAT LANDSCAPE ANALYSIS

      If You Use Grafana, You Are a Target: The Real-Time Threat Landscape of CVE-2021-43798    

By CyberDudeBivash • October 03, 2025 • Threat Intelligence Report

 cyberdudebivash.com |       cyberbivash.blogspot.com 

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Disclosure: This is a threat analysis for DevOps, SREs, and security professionals. It contains affiliate links to relevant security solutions. Your support helps fund our independent research.

 Threat Report: Table of Contents 

1. Chapter 1: The Long Tail of Risk — Why Old Vulnerabilities Never Die
2. Chapter 2: Threat Analysis — A Refresher on the Grafana Path Traversal (CVE-2021-43798)
3. Chapter 3: The Real-Time Threat Landscape — Who is Exploiting This Today?
4. Chapter 4: The Defender’s Playbook — Patching, Hardening, and Hunting

Chapter 1: The Long Tail of Risk — Why Old Vulnerabilities Never Die

In cybersecurity, a patch is not the end of a vulnerability’s story; it’s just the beginning. While security teams rush to patch a newly disclosed flaw, a significant portion of the internet—the “long tail”—remains unpatched for months or even years. Threat actors know this. They build automated scanners and toolkits that continuously search for these forgotten, vulnerable systems. The Grafana path traversal flaw, **CVE-2021-43798**, is a prime example. Though a patch has been available for years, thousands of internet-facing Grafana instances remain vulnerable. For attackers, these unpatched systems are low-hanging fruit, providing an easy and reliable entry point into corporate networks.

Chapter 2: Threat Analysis — A Refresher on the Grafana Path Traversal (CVE-2021-43798)

The vulnerability is a classic, unauthenticated **path traversal**. It exists in a URL endpoint designed to serve static files for installed plugins.

The Exploit:

The flaw allows an attacker to use `../` (dot-dot-slash) sequences to break out of the intended plugin directory and navigate to any other file on the server’s filesystem. An unauthenticated attacker can simply send a crafted GET request to read a sensitive file. For example, to read the `/etc/passwd` file, the request would look like this:

GET /public/plugins/alertlist/../../../../../../../../../../etc/passwd HTTP/1.1
Host: [vulnerable-grafana-server]

While reading `/etc/passwd` is a good proof of concept, a real attacker will target more valuable files, such as:

• `grafana.ini` or `defaults.ini`: To steal the database connection string, secret keys, or other sensitive configurations.
• `/home/[user]/.ssh/id_rsa`: To steal the SSH private keys of the user running the Grafana service.
• Cloud credentials stored in environment variables or configuration files.

Chapter 3: The Real-Time Threat Landscape — Who is Exploiting This Today?

The ease of exploitation has made CVE-2021-43798 a staple in the toolkit of various threat actors.

1. Automated Scanners & Botnets:** The exploit is a one-line `curl` command, making it trivial to integrate into automated scanners that constantly search the internet for vulnerable hosts. These bots often use the flaw to install cryptomining malware.
2. Initial Access Brokers (IABs):** This is the most dangerous threat. IABs are criminal specialists who find and exploit vulnerabilities like this one to gain an initial foothold. They don’t conduct the final attack; instead, they package this access and sell it on dark web forums to the highest bidder.
3. **Ransomware Gangs:** The customers of the IABs. A ransomware group will purchase the access to a compromised Grafana server, use the stolen credentials to move laterally, and eventually deploy their **ransomware payload** across the victim’s entire network.

Chapter 4: The Defender’s Playbook — Patching, Hardening, and Hunting

Defending against this persistent threat requires a focus on basic security hygiene and proactive monitoring.

Step 1: Identify and Patch

First, identify all Grafana instances in your organization. Check the version in the UI’s footer. If you are running any version between 8.0.0-beta1 and 8.3.0, you are vulnerable. **You must upgrade to a patched version immediately.**

Step 2: Harden Your Deployment

A patched server is good, but a hardened server is better. The Grafana web interface should **not** be exposed directly to the public internet. Place it behind an authenticating proxy or a VPN, and use firewall rules to restrict access to only trusted IP addresses.

Step 3: Hunt for Compromise

Assume you were compromised before patching. Scrutinize your web server access logs for any requests to the `/public/plugins/` directory that contain `../` sequences. Any such request is a definitive indicator of an exploitation attempt.

 Detect Post-Exploitation Activity: Even if you miss the initial exploit, an EDR can detect what the attacker does next. A powerful **EDR solution** will alert on the suspicious behavior that follows a breach, such as the Grafana process spawning a shell or making unusual outbound connections. See our **EDR Face-Off** to choose the right tool.  

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About the Author

CyberDudeBivash is a cybersecurity strategist with 15+ years in DevOps security, incident response, and vulnerability management, advising CISOs across APAC. [Last Updated: October 03, 2025]

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