Grafana Labs has issued a critical security advisory for its Enterprise product, warning of a maximum severity vulnerability that allows attackers to spoof administrative accounts and escalate privileges. The flaw, tracked as CVE-2025-41115, carries a CVSS score of 10.0 and affects specific configurations of the System for Cross-domain Identity Management (SCIM) provisioning feature1. This vulnerability represents one of the most severe security issues discovered in the popular observability platform, with potential consequences including complete compromise of managed Grafana instances.
The vulnerability was discovered by security researcher Alvaro Balada through Grafana’s bug bounty program and was promptly addressed by the vendor1. According to the official advisory published on November 19, 2025, the security flaw enables a malicious or compromised SCIM client to provision users with administrative privileges by exploiting incorrect identity mapping between external and internal user identifiers1. The vulnerability specifically impacts Grafana Enterprise versions 12.0.0 through 12.2.1, while the open-source Grafana OSS edition remains unaffected.
Technical Mechanism of the Privilege Escalation Flaw
The core issue resides in how Grafana Enterprise handles numeric externalId values during SCIM user provisioning. When the SCIM feature is enabled with user synchronization active, the system incorrectly maps numeric externalId values directly to internal user.uid fields1. This mapping collision becomes critical because internal user IDs in Grafana are numeric, with the default administrator account typically assigned ID ‘1’. An attacker can exploit this by provisioning a user with an externalId value of ‘1’, effectively hijacking the administrative account.
For successful exploitation, two specific configuration requirements must be met: the enableSCIM feature flag must be set to true, and the user_sync_enabled configuration option in the [auth.scim] block must also be enabled1. This specific configuration significantly reduces the attack surface, as organizations not using SCIM provisioning remain unaffected. The vulnerability was introduced with SCIM functionality added in April 2025 and affects all Enterprise releases until the patched versions.
Security analysis from SiteGuarding identifies three primary attack vectors for this vulnerability: compromise of a legitimate SCIM client through methods like phishing an identity provider administrator, insider threats from users with SCIM provisioning access, and supply chain attacks through compromised managed service providers2. The business impact of successful exploitation could include operational intelligence compromise, regulatory violations for organizations subject to GDPR, HIPAA, or SOX compliance, and significant financial and reputational damage.
Affected Versions and Patch Availability
Grafana Labs has released patched versions that address CVE-2025-41115 across all affected release lines. The fixes are included in Grafana Enterprise 12.3.0, 12.2.1, 12.1.3, and 12.0.61. The vendor’s coordinated disclosure timeline shows the vulnerability was discovered internally on November 4, 2025, with patches privately released to customers on November 5, followed by public disclosure on November 19. This rapid response demonstrates Grafana’s established security incident management process.
Managed service offerings including Grafana Cloud, Amazon Managed Grafana, and Azure Managed Grafana have already been patched, requiring no customer action1. For on-premises Enterprise deployments, administrators should immediately upgrade to the appropriate patched version. Organizations unable to apply patches immediately should consider disabling SCIM functionality entirely if it’s not essential to their operations, though this may impact user management workflows in environments relying on automated identity provisioning.
| Vulnerable Versions | Patched Versions |
|---|---|
| 12.0.0 | 12.0.6 |
| 12.1.0 – 12.1.2 | 12.1.3 |
| 12.2.0 – 12.2.1 | 12.2.1 (patched) |
| 12.2.x series | 12.3.0 |
Detection and Mitigation Strategies
Organizations should immediately review their Grafana Enterprise deployment configurations to determine if they are running vulnerable versions with SCIM enabled. The configuration check involves verifying both the enableSCIM feature flag and the [auth.scim] user_sync_enabled setting. For detection, security teams can monitor SCIM provisioning logs for suspicious activity, particularly the creation of users with numeric externalId values that match existing internal user IDs, especially low-numbered IDs that typically correspond to administrative accounts.
SiteGuarding’s technical analysis recommends implementing SIEM queries to detect potential exploitation attempts, focusing on SCIM provisioning events that create or modify user privileges2. A multi-layered mitigation approach should include immediate patching as the primary solution, complemented by network-level controls to restrict SCIM endpoint access, enhanced monitoring of SCIM provisioning activities, and regular review of user account privileges, particularly administrative accounts.
For organizations that cannot immediately patch, disabling SCIM functionality provides complete protection against this vulnerability. This can be accomplished by setting both enableSCIM and user_sync_enabled to false in the Grafana configuration. However, this mitigation will break automated user provisioning workflows for organizations that depend on SCIM integration with their identity providers, creating a trade-off between security and operational functionality that must be carefully evaluated.
Context Within Grafana’s 2025 Security Landscape
CVE-2025-41115 represents the most severe vulnerability in a series of security issues addressed by Grafana Labs throughout 2025. The Feedly CVE tracker lists multiple other vulnerabilities discovered this year, including CVE-2025-6197, an open redirect in organization switching functionality, and CVE-2025-6023, a high-severity cross-site scripting vulnerability fixed in July8. This pattern highlights the continuous security maintenance required for complex monitoring platforms.
Notably, researcher Alvaro Balada has contributed significantly to Grafana’s security improvement, having also discovered CVE-2025-4123, a high-severity XSS vulnerability patched in May 202510. The consistency of external researchers identifying critical flaws underscores the value of Grafana’s bug bounty program in strengthening the platform’s security posture. Other researchers including Hoa X. Nguyen, Dat Phung, and Saket Pandey have also contributed vulnerability discoveries through the program.
Earlier in 2025, Grafana addressed four critical remote code execution vulnerabilities (CVE-2025-5959, CVE-2025-6554, CVE-2025-6191, CVE-2025-6192) in the Grafana Image Renderer plugin and Synthetic Monitoring Agent, stemming from flaws in the Chromium library5. These vulnerabilities, while in auxiliary components rather than the core platform, demonstrate the expanded attack surface that comes with integrated functionality and the importance of comprehensive security patching that includes all platform components.
Broader Implications for Enterprise Security
The discovery of CVE-2025-41115 highlights the security risks associated with identity management integrations in enterprise software. SCIM implementations must carefully handle the mapping between external and internal identifiers to prevent privilege escalation attacks. This vulnerability specifically demonstrates how seemingly minor implementation details in identity synchronization can create critical security gaps that enable complete system compromise.
For security teams, this incident reinforces the importance of maintaining strict access controls around identity management systems and monitoring provisioning activities for anomalous patterns. The attack vector through compromised SCIM clients also emphasizes the need for securing the entire identity management chain, not just the target application. Organizations should apply the principle of least privilege to SCIM client credentials and implement monitoring for unusual provisioning requests.
The rapid response from Grafana Labs, with patches available within a day of internal discovery, sets a positive example for vulnerability management in commercial software. The coordinated disclosure process, including private patching for affected customers before public announcement, helped minimize the window of exposure while ensuring organizations had access to fixes before widespread awareness of the vulnerability.
Security professionals should view this vulnerability as a reminder to maintain comprehensive software inventories with version tracking, establish robust patch management processes for critical infrastructure components, and implement defense-in-depth strategies that don’t rely solely on application-level controls. Network segmentation, strict access controls, and continuous monitoring provide additional layers of protection that can contain the impact of such vulnerabilities even when patching is delayed.
As organizations increasingly rely on integrated identity management systems for operational efficiency, the security of these integrations becomes increasingly critical. The Grafana SCIM vulnerability serves as a case study in how identity provisioning systems, if not properly secured, can become powerful attack vectors that undermine access control mechanisms across enterprise environments.
