Vulnerability-Lookup

Vulnerability from bitnami_vulndb

Published

2026-08-19 08:39

Modified

2026-09-08 08:34

Summary

Memory Allocation with Excessive Size Value in Elasticsearch Leading to Denial of Service

Details

Elasticsearch does not validate a size value taken from a user-supplied input before that value is used to reserve memory for an internal data structure. An authenticated user holding only read privileges can submit a single small crafted request to a product API endpoint that causes the node to attempt an excessively large allocation. The resulting memory exhaustion raises a fatal error that terminates the Elasticsearch node process, causing a denial of service for the affected node and degrading cluster health. The defect is not volumetric, so a single request is sufficient regardless of the heap size configured on the target node.

JSON

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{
  "affected": [
    {
      "package": {
        "ecosystem": "Bitnami",
        "name": "elasticsearch",
        "purl": "pkg:bitnami/elasticsearch"
      },
      "ranges": [
        {
          "events": [
            {
              "introduced": "8.19.0"
            },
            {
              "fixed": "8.19.20"
            },
            {
              "introduced": "9.4.0"
            },
            {
              "fixed": "9.4.5"
            },
            {
              "introduced": "9.5.0"
            },
            {
              "fixed": "9.5.1"
            }
          ],
          "type": "SEMVER"
        }
      ],
      "severity": [
        {
          "score": "CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H",
          "type": "CVSS_V3"
        }
      ]
    }
  ],
  "aliases": [
    "CVE-2026-72678"
  ],
  "database_specific": {
    "cpes": [
      "cpe:2.3:a:elastic:elasticsearch:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*",
      "cpe:2.3:a:elastic:elasticsearch:*:*:*:*:*:maven:*:*"
    ],
    "severity": "Medium"
  },
  "details": "Elasticsearch does not validate a size value taken from a user-supplied input before that value is used to reserve memory for an internal data structure. An authenticated user holding only read privileges can submit a single small crafted request to a product API endpoint that causes the node to attempt an excessively large allocation. The resulting memory exhaustion raises a fatal error that terminates the Elasticsearch node process, causing a denial of service for the affected node and degrading cluster health. The defect is not volumetric, so a single request is sufficient regardless of the heap size configured on the target node.",
  "id": "BIT-elasticsearch-2026-72678",
  "modified": "2026-09-08T08:34:36.952Z",
  "published": "2026-08-19T08:39:44.859Z",
  "references": [
    {
      "type": "ADVISORY",
      "url": "https://discuss.elastic.co/t/elasticsearch-8-19-20-9-4-5-9-5-1-security-update-esa-2026-80/389507"
    },
    {
      "type": "WEB",
      "url": "https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-72678"
    }
  ],
  "schema_version": "1.6.2",
  "summary": "Memory Allocation with Excessive Size Value in Elasticsearch Leading to Denial of Service"
}

CVE-2026-72678 (GCVE-0-2026-72678)

Vulnerability from cvelistv5 – Published: 2026-08-13 19:11 – Updated: 2026-08-13 20:34

Title

Memory Allocation with Excessive Size Value in Elasticsearch Leading to Denial of Service

Summary

Severity

6.5 (Medium)


                        
                          CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

SSVC

Exploitation: none Automatable: no Technical Impact: partial

CISA Coordinator · CISA-ADP (v2.0.3)

Decision recorded 2026-08-13 20:23 UTC

CWE

CWE-789 - Memory Allocation with Excessive Size Value

Assigner

elastic mitre root

References

1 reference

URL	Tags
https://discuss.elastic.co/t/elasticsearch-8-19-2…

Impacted products

1 product

Vendor	Product	Version
Elastic	Elasticsearch	Affected: 8.19.0 , ≤ 8.19.19 (semver) Affected: 9.4.0 , ≤ 9.4.4 (semver) Affected: 9.5.0 (semver)

Show details on NVD website

JSON

To clipboard

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  "containers": {
    "adp": [
      {
        "metrics": [
          {
            "other": {
              "content": {
                "id": "CVE-2026-72678",
                "options": [
                  {
                    "Exploitation": "none"
                  },
                  {
                    "Automatable": "no"
                  },
                  {
                    "Technical Impact": "partial"
                  }
                ],
                "role": "CISA Coordinator",
                "timestamp": "2026-08-13T20:23:21.261336Z",
                "version": "2.0.3"
              },
              "type": "ssvc"
            }
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        ],
        "providerMetadata": {
          "dateUpdated": "2026-08-13T20:34:20.569Z",
          "orgId": "134c704f-9b21-4f2e-91b3-4a467353bcc0",
          "shortName": "CISA-ADP"
        },
        "title": "CISA ADP Vulnrichment"
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    "cna": {
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          "product": "Elasticsearch",
          "vendor": "Elastic",
          "versions": [
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              "status": "affected",
              "version": "8.19.0",
              "versionType": "semver"
            },
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              "lessThanOrEqual": "9.4.4",
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              "version": "9.4.0",
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            },
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              "version": "9.5.0",
              "versionType": "semver"
            }
          ]
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      ],
      "descriptions": [
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          "supportingMedia": [
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              "type": "text/html",
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            }
          ],
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        }
      ],
      "metrics": [
        {
          "cvssV3_1": {
            "attackComplexity": "LOW",
            "attackVector": "NETWORK",
            "availabilityImpact": "HIGH",
            "baseScore": 6.5,
            "baseSeverity": "MEDIUM",
            "confidentialityImpact": "NONE",
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            "scope": "UNCHANGED",
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        }
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      "source": {
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    "assignerShortName": "elastic",
    "cveId": "CVE-2026-72678",
    "datePublished": "2026-08-13T19:11:02.710Z",
    "dateReserved": "2026-08-10T11:17:58.730Z",
    "dateUpdated": "2026-08-13T20:34:20.569Z",
    "state": "PUBLISHED"
  },
  "dataType": "CVE_RECORD",
  "dataVersion": "5.2"
}

Sightings

Author	Source	Type	Date	Other

Nomenclature

Seen: The vulnerability was mentioned, discussed, or observed by the user.
Confirmed: The vulnerability has been validated from an analyst's perspective.
Published Proof of Concept: A public proof of concept is available for this vulnerability.
Exploited: The vulnerability was observed as exploited by the user who reported the sighting.
Patched: The vulnerability was observed as successfully patched by the user who reported the sighting.
Not exploited: The vulnerability was not observed as exploited by the user who reported the sighting.
Not confirmed: The user expressed doubt about the validity of the vulnerability.
Not patched: The vulnerability was not observed as successfully patched by the user who reported the sighting.

Detection rules are retrieved from Rulezet.

The MITRE ATT&CK techniques below are AI-generated suggestions, inferred from the description of the vulnerability by the CIRCL/vulnerability-attack-technique-classification-roberta-base model, served locally by ML-Gateway. They have not been verified by an analyst and are provided for guidance only.
The approach is described in our paper Mapping CVEs to MITRE ATT&CK Techniques: A Curated Gold-Set Classifier and the Limits of LLM-Assisted Label Expansion.
Browse all ATT&CK techniques and the vulnerabilities related to each.

Related by attack behaviour

Vulnerabilities whose description is nearest to this one in the vector space of the CIRCL/vulnerability-attack-technique-biencoder model. This is a similarity search over the bi-encoder space (plain cosine), not a classification, and it has no measured accuracy.