Severity by source
AV:N/AC:L/PR:H/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:N
Primary rating from Vendor (elastic) · only source for this CVE.
CVSS VectorVendor: elastic
Lifecycle Timeline
3DescriptionCVE.org
Improper Input Validation (CWE-20) in the Kibana Fleet agent policy management feature can lead to privilege escalation. An authenticated user with Fleet management privileges can manipulate agent policy configuration by injecting values into a configuration override mechanism that is not adequately validated. An attacker can cause Elastic Agents to be issued API keys with elevated Elasticsearch privileges, potentially granting unauthorized read and write access to sensitive Elasticsearch security indices beyond what is intended for the Fleet management role.
AnalysisAI
Privilege escalation in Elastic Kibana's Fleet agent policy management feature allows authenticated Fleet administrators to inject unvalidated values into a configuration override mechanism, causing Elastic Agents to be provisioned with API keys carrying elevated Elasticsearch privileges. Successful exploitation yields unauthorized read/write access to sensitive Elasticsearch security indices beyond the Fleet role's intended scope. No public exploit identified at time of analysis, and CISA KEV does not list this issue.
Technical ContextAI
Kibana Fleet is the centralized management plane for Elastic Agents, used to push integration policies and credentials to fleet-managed endpoints. When an administrator defines or updates an agent policy, Kibana mints Elasticsearch API keys that the agents use to ship data to specified indices. The vulnerability is rooted in CWE-20 (Improper Input Validation): a configuration override path within agent policy management accepts attacker-controlled fields without enforcing that the resulting API key privileges remain within the Fleet role's authorization boundary, effectively allowing role-scope confusion at the Elasticsearch RBAC layer. The affected component is identified by cpe:2.3:a:elastic:kibana:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:* and centers on the Fleet/agent-policy subsystem rather than core Kibana UI.
RemediationAI
Vendor-released patch: upgrade Kibana to 8.19.16, 9.3.5, or 9.4.2 (or later) per Elastic advisory ESA-2026-38 at https://discuss.elastic.co/t/kibana-fleet-8-19-16-9-3-5-and-9-4-2-security-update-esa-2026-38/386559, which is the only complete fix because the issue lives in server-side validation of agent policy overrides. Until patched, compensating controls are to tightly restrict assignment of the Fleet management role (e.g. the built-in 'fleet_all' and equivalent custom roles) to a small, trusted operator group, audit recent agent policy changes and any newly issued Elastic Agent API keys for unexpected Elasticsearch privileges, and rotate Fleet-issued API keys after upgrade; the trade-off is operational overhead and brief agent re-enrollment churn. As an additional hardening step, separate the Kibana Fleet instance from the Elasticsearch cluster that hosts production security indices where feasible, accepting the cost of running a dedicated Fleet stack.
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Same weakness CWE-20 – Improper Input Validation
View allSame technique Privilege Escalation
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External POC / Exploit Code
Leaving vuln.today
EUVD-2026-33033
GHSA-p9vc-h7rw-q6hq