Prometheus Pushgateway Panel Detection Scanner

Prometheus Pushgateway is typically used within software monitoring environments to improve metric collection processes. It is commonly deployed by system administrators and developers who leverage Prometheus for monitoring their IT infrastructure. The primary purpose of Pushgateway is to facilitate the temporary storage and forwarding of metrics from jobs or scripts that do not run constantly. These setups often include batch jobs or other on-demand scripts that need to report metrics to a Prometheus server. Pushgateway allows these metrics to persist for long enough to be scraped by a Prometheus server. The tool is widely used in complex environments where traditional metrics reporting tools lack the flexibility required in dynamic infrastructure.

The vulnerability detected in this scanner relates to the visibility of the Prometheus Pushgateway panel. This panel might be exposed to unauthorized access if not properly secured. Unauthorized exposure of the Pushgateway panel could lead to information about running services and systems metrics being easily discoverable. This detection is focused on identifying open panels which might not require authentication for access. Such vulnerabilities might not immediately result in data leakage but provide potential threat vectors if exploited in combination with other vulnerabilities. Implementing proper access controls to limit panel exposure can mitigate the detection risk.

In terms of technical details, the detection for this vulnerability involves identifying the presence of the Prometheus Pushgateway panel through its identifiable HTML title. The vulnerable endpoint is typically the main page of the Pushgateway service. If the endpoint is publicly accessible without restrictions, the service panel can reveal details about the job metrics being managed through Pushgateway. This scanner uses HTTP requests to verify the existence of specific tags or words that match the panel's distinct characteristics. Though this detection method does not exploit a vulnerability directly, it flags the potential risk of an exposed panel.

Exploitation of this vulnerability might allow a malicious actor to gain insights into system operations and chronologies. Such information could be used to understand system behaviors and detect times of low activity to plan further exploitation steps without easy detection. Additionally, displaying metrics could inadvertently reveal details about system design and triggering events which might be used to deduce additional vulnerabilities. While this is not a direct threat per se, exposed panels constitute an information disclosure that can pose significant security risks.

REFERENCES

• https://prometheus.io/docs/practices/pushgateway/