TectonicApplication · Redhat
CVE-2018-9090
Official description Straight from the sourceThe vendor's or NVD's own wording, published unedited. Authoritative, but often terse — it says what broke, rarely what to do.
NVD · uneditedCoreOS Tectonic 1.7.x and 1.8.x before 1.8.7-tectonic.2 deploys the Grafana web application using default credentials (admin/admin) for the administrator account located at grafana-credentials secret. This occurs because CoreOS does not randomize the administrative password to later be configured by Tectonic administrators. An attacker can insert an XSS payload into the dashboards.
Technical summary Written by usOur analysis, written from the advisory, the CVSS vector and the affected-version data. It adds context the advisory leaves out, and never invents facts that are not in the source.
dbcve analysis · high confidenceCoreOS Tectonic 1.7.x and 1.8.x before 1.8.7-tectonic.2 deploys the Grafana web application with hardcoded default credentials (admin/admin) stored in the grafana-credentials Kubernetes secret, rather than generating a random password. An attacker with network access to Grafana can authenticate with these known credentials and inject malicious JavaScript/XSS payloads into dashboard configurations.
Verify against the referenced sources before acting — the references below are authoritative for this CVE, this summary is not.
Affected products & versions What the vendor confirmedThe version ranges the vendor confirmed as vulnerable. If your version sits inside a range here, treat yourself as exposed until you have upgraded.
NVD · CPE data
TectonicApplication
>= 1.7.1-tectonic.1, < 1.8.7-tectonic.2CVSS breakdown How the score is builtThe industry scoring standard. It rates how the flaw is reached, what it takes to exploit, and what an attacker gains — the score is derived from those, not the other way round.
From the vector- Attack vector
- Network
- Complexity
- Low
- Privileges
- None
- User interaction
- Required
- Scope
- Changed
- Confidentiality
- Low
- Integrity
- Low
- Availability
- None
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:C/C:L/I:L/A:N
Am I affected? How to checkSteps we derive from the advisory and the affected-version data, so you can decide whether this CVE reaches your setup. They are a guide, not a scan — your own configuration is the authority.
dbcve checksWork through these to decide whether this CVE applies to you.
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Identify Tectonic versionRun 'kubectl get clusterversion -o jsonpath={.items[0].spec.version}' or check the Tectonic installer manifest to determine the installed Tectonic versionAffected if The version is 1.7.1-tectonic.1 or higher but lower than 1.8.7-tectonic.2
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Locate Grafana credentials secretRun 'kubectl get secret grafana-credentials -n <monitoring-namespace> -o yaml' to retrieve the secret containing Grafana admin credentialsAffected if The secret exists and contains base64-encoded credentials
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Decode and inspect the Grafana passwordDecode the password field from the secret using 'kubectl get secret grafana-credentials -n <monitoring-namespace> -o jsonpath={.data.password}' | base64 -d'Affected if The decoded password is 'admin' (the known hardcoded default)
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Verify if Grafana is network-accessibleCheck Kubernetes service/ingress for Grafana: 'kubectl get svc grafana -n <monitoring-namespace>' and review network policies allowing external accessAffected if Grafana is exposed externally or accessible from untrusted networks
You are affected if running a Tectonic version in the range 1.7.1-tectonic.1 to 1.8.7-tectonic.1 AND the grafana-credentials secret contains the default 'admin' password AND Grafana is network-accessible.
Generated from the published advisory. Verify against your own configuration.
Remediation Closing itWhat it takes to close this. Where a vendor fix exists we point at it; where none exists we say so plainly, and can build one. Effort estimates are scoped from the advisory, not from your codebase.
From vendor data1.8.7-tectonic.2
Immediately change the default Grafana admin password by updating the grafana-credentials secret with a strong, unique password, and verify that new Tectonic deployments use randomized credentials rather than defaults.
Fix this in Tectonic
Scoped from the published advisory
- Consultation2.0 h
- Implementation2.0 h
- Testing2.0 h
- Review / QA1.0 h
An estimate, not a bill — we confirm scope with you before any work starts. Need it this week? Rush from $1,984.
Scan for this in your stack
Free · runs locallyCheck whether your project pulls in CVE-2018-9090 — or any other known-vulnerable package — straight from your lock files. Free and open source; it runs locally and uploads nothing.
References Go to the primary sourcePrimary sources — vendor advisories, patches and trackers. Where our summary and a reference disagree, the reference wins.
Primary sourcesPractitioner notes
ContributedPeer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-2018-9090 in production — separate from our analysis above.
The advisory tells you what broke. It rarely tells you what actually worked. If you’ve dealt with this one, that detail is what the next engineer is searching for.
- The version that genuinely resolved it — not the one the vendor claimed
- A config change or rule that shut the vector down
- A gotcha in the upgrade path that cost you an afternoon
No notes yet
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- Version or environment caveats, and links to real fixes
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