How severe is CVE-2022-46146?

CVE-2022-46146 has a CVSS score of 6.2/10, rated MEDIUM. Review your exposure and patch according to your risk tolerance.

Which packages are affected by CVE-2022-46146?

CVE-2022-46146 affects the following packages: github.com/prometheus/exporter-toolkit (Go), github.com/prometheus/exporter-toolkit (Go). Ecosystems affected: Go.

How do I fix CVE-2022-46146?

Update github.com/prometheus/exporter-toolkit to 0.7.2 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2022-46146 is resolved across your whole dependency graph.

How do I detect CVE-2022-46146 in my Go dependencies?

Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for github.com/prometheus/exporter-toolkit, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.

How do I mitigate CVE-2022-46146 if there is no patch (or I can't update yet)?

Put an independent control in front of the weakness: restrict the affected endpoint or interface to trusted networks, require an additional authentication factor or proxy-level check, and invalidate existing sessions and credentials in case the flaw has already been used.

Is CVE-2022-46146 actively exploited in the wild?

Yes. There are 3 known exploit references for CVE-2022-46146, including 3 in-the-wild exploitations observed on GitHub and other sources. Treat this as actively exploitable and prioritize patching immediately. All exploit code should only be run in an isolated sandbox environment for research or authorized testing — never against production systems without explicit written authorization.

What is the EPSS score for CVE-2022-46146?

CVE-2022-46146 has an EPSS (Exploit Prediction Scoring System) score of 1.3%, placing it in the 70th percentile of all CVEs. EPSS is maintained by FIRST.org and estimates the probability that a vulnerability will be exploited in the wild within the next 30 days. This score indicates relatively lower exploitation probability, though the CVSS severity should still guide your patching priority.

What type of vulnerability is CVE-2022-46146?

CVE-2022-46146 is classified as Improper Authentication (CWE-287), CWE-303 (CWE-303). These weakness types describe the underlying flaw category, which helps determine the potential impact and the right class of mitigation.

When was CVE-2022-46146 published, and has it been updated?

CVE-2022-46146 was published on November 29, 2022 and was last updated on October 28, 2026. Advisory data evolves as severity scores, affected ranges, and exploit intelligence are revised — always check the latest version of the advisory before acting.

🐹

🐹 Go

Not in CISA KEV

MEDIUM severity

CVE-2022-46146 — exporter-toolkit

MEDIUMFix: prometheus/exporter-toolkit@5b1eab3

CVE-2022-46146 is a medium-severity (CVSS 6.2) Improper Authentication vulnerability in github.com/prometheus/exporter-toolkit. 3 public exploit or proof-of-concept references are indexed, so weaponization risk is real. A fix is available for github.com/prometheus/exporter-toolkit — see the affected versions and patch details below.

Prometheus Exporter Toolkit vulnerable to basic authentication bypass

Also known asGHSA-7rg2-cxvp-9p7pGO-2022-1130

Published

Nov 29, 2022

Updated

Oct 28, 2026

Affected

2 pkgs

Patched

2 / 2

Exploits

3 known

Exploitation data as of Nov 4, 2026 · OSV.dev, NVD, FIRST.org (EPSS)

EPSS Exploitation Probability

via FIRST.org ↗

1.3%probability of exploitation in next 30 days

Lower Risk+0.03%

Lower risk than most CVEs70th percentile — riskier than 70% of all scored CVEsHighest risk

Probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, from FIRST.org EPSS.

How urgent is this, really

Where this sits among everything scored

Real-World Exposure

2 pkgs affected

🐹github.com/prometheus/exporter-toolkit🐹github.com/prometheus/exporter-toolkit

Real-time download stats are indexed for npm and PyPI packages. This vulnerability affects Go packages — download data is not available via public APIs for these ecosystems.

Description

Impact

Prometheus and its exporters can be secured by a web.yml file that specifies usernames and hashed passwords for basic authentication.

Passwords are hashed with bcrypt, which means that even if you have access to the hash, it is very hard to find the original password back.

However, a flaw in the way this mechanism was implemented in the exporter toolkit makes it possible with people who know the hashed password to authenticate against Prometheus.

A request can be forged by an attacker to poison the internal cache used to cache the computation of hashes and make subsequent requests successful. This cache is used in both happy and unhappy scenarios in order to limit side channel attacks that could tell an attacker if a user is present in the file or not.

Patches

The exporter-toolkit v0.7.3 and v0.8.2 have been released to address this issue.

Workarounds

There is no workaround but attacker must have access to the hashed password, stored in disk, to bypass the authentication.

Credit

We want to thank Lei Wan reporting this security issue.

Affected Packages

2 total 2 fixed

Ecosystem	Package	Vulnerable range	Fix
🐹Go	`github.com/prometheus/exporter-toolkit`	all versions	0.7.2`go get github.com/prometheus/exporter-toolkit@v0.7.2`
🐹Go	`github.com/prometheus/exporter-toolkit`	≥ 0.8.0&&< 0.8.2	0.8.2`go get github.com/prometheus/exporter-toolkit@v0.8.2`

Affected Products

1 product · 2 configurations

Application

exporter toolkitprometheus

≥ 0.8.0 && < 0.8.2

range

Exploits & PoCs

Research use only. For defensive security, authorized penetration testing, and academic research only. Never execute exploit code against systems without explicit written authorization.

Prometheus Exporter Toolkit is a utility package to build exporters. Pri…

openwall.comNVDDec 2022

Report on openwall.com

openwall.comNVDDec 2022

Report on openwall.com

openwall.comNVDDec 2022

Detection & mitigation playbook

Open-source dependency

Detect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for github.com/prometheus/exporter-toolkit, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update github.com/prometheus/exporter-toolkit to 0.7.2 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2022-46146 is resolved across your whole dependency graph.
Workarounds
Put an independent control in front of the weakness: restrict the affected endpoint or interface to trusted networks, require an additional authentication factor or proxy-level check, and invalidate existing sessions and credentials in case the flaw has already been used.

Fixing This On Your OS

If you run this on a Linux distribution, patch through your package manager against the distro's own security advisory below — it tracks the exact backported fix for your release, which can ship on a different timeline (and sometimes a different severity) than the upstream project.

Red HatModerate

Product	Fixed in	Advisory
Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4.11	`openshift4/ose-thanos-rhel8:v4.11.0-202308311243.p0.g99b6e03.assembly.stream`	RHSA-2023:5001
Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4.12	`openshift4/ose-thanos-rhel8:v4.12.0-202305022015.p0.g9f2b5ff.assembly.stream`	RHSA-2023:2110
Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4.13	`openshift4/ose-kube-state-metrics:v4.13.0-202304190216.p0.g4b96984.assembly.stream`	RHSA-2023:1326

Frequently Asked Questions

### Impact Prometheus and its exporters can be secured by a web.yml file that specifies usernames and hashed passwords for basic authentication. Passwords are hashed with bcrypt, which means that even if you have access to the hash, it is very hard to find the original password back. However, a flaw in the way this mechanism was implemented in the exporter toolkit makes it possible with people who know the hashed password to authenticate against Prometheus. A request can be forged by an attacker to poison the internal cache used to cache the computation of hashes and make subsequent reques

O3 Security · Impact-Aware SCA

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