Attack ChainAIDerived
Hypothetical attack flow derived from CVE metadata – not a confirmed exploit chain
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AccessIdentify network-accessible OpenSearch Dashboards instance
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DeliveryCraft oversized HTTP request targeting capabilities route
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ExploitSubmit request without authentication
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ExecutionServer buffers unbounded payload
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PersistMemory or CPU exhaustion on Dashboards process
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ImpactService becomes unavailable to legitimate users
Vulnerability Assessment
| Weakness |
CWE
ASVS 5.0
V2 - Validation and Business Logic Input size validation
|
| Exploitation Conditions | No authentication is required (CVSS PR:N) and no user interaction is needed (UI:N). Attack complexity is low (AC:L) with no specific attack requirements (AT:N), meaning the vulnerability is exploitable against any OpenSearch Dashboards instance that is network-reachable on its HTTP/HTTPS port. The only prerequisite is the ability to send an HTTP request to the capabilities endpoint. Exploitation is limited by: (1) network accessibility - instances bound only to localhost or protected by a firewall or VPN are not directly reachable; (2) the impact ceiling is denial of service only, with no confidentiality or integrity exposure; (3) AWS-managed OpenSearch Service deployments may have service-layer controls that absorb or rate-limit such requests independently of the application vulnerability. |
| Impact | The CVSS 4.0 vector (AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:N/VC:N/VI:N/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N) scores 8.7, driven entirely by high availability impact and the absence of any barrier to exploitation: no authentication, no user interaction, low complexity, and no special attack requirements. This makes network-exposed Dashboards instances directly reachable by any attacker who can send HTTP traffic. The impact is confined to availability - confidentiality and integrity are unaffected, which limits the scenario to service disruption rather than data compromise or lateral movement. No EPSS data was provided in the intelligence feed, and the vulnerability has not been added to CISA KEV, suggesting exploitation is not yet confirmed in the wild. No public proof-of-concept code has been identified. While the attack is trivially executable, the real-world urgency depends heavily on whether Dashboards is internet-facing: internally-restricted deployments face substantially lower risk due to network controls. AWS-managed OpenSearch Service customers should consult the vendor advisory, as AWS may have applied mitigations at the managed service layer independently of customer-side upgrades. |
| Exploit ScenarioDerived | An unauthenticated attacker sends a single crafted HTTP request with an arbitrarily large body to the capabilities route handler endpoint on a network-accessible OpenSearch Dashboards instance. The server buffers and attempts to process the oversized payload, exhausting available memory or CPU on the Node.js process. Repeated requests, or a single sufficiently large payload, render the Dashboards service unresponsive, denying legitimate users access to the search and analytics interface. No public proof-of-concept has been identified, but the attack requires no special tooling beyond a standard HTTP client. |
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Alert meAnalysisAIv1 – Aug 18, 2026
Unbounded HTTP request payload processing in OpenSearch Dashboards' capabilities route handler allows unauthenticated remote attackers to exhaust server resources and cause a denial of service. Affected products span both self-hosted OpenSearch Dashboards (all versions per CPE) and Amazon OpenSearch Service. The CVSS 4.0 score of 8.7 with AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:N reflects low attack complexity and no authentication prerequisite, making any network-exposed instance potentially reachable. No public exploit or CISA KEV listing has been identified at time of analysis, and a vendor-released patch is available.
RemediationAI
Upgrade to the patched release of OpenSearch Dashboards available at https://opensearch.org/downloads/ per vendor advisory https://aws.amazon.com/security/security-bulletins/2026-082-aws/. An exact fixed version number was not independently confirmed in the available intelligence - consult the advisory directly for the minimum safe release. For Amazon OpenSearch Service managed deployments, AWS may apply service-side mitigations separately; review the bulletin for domain-specific guidance. As a compensating control where immediate upgrade is not feasible, restrict HTTP access to the Dashboards capabilities route (typically /api/core/capabilities) at the load balancer or WAF layer to trusted internal networks only - this removes the network attack vector at the cost of blocking external dashboard access. Additionally, configuring a reverse proxy (e.g., nginx or HAProxy) to enforce a maximum request body size (e.g., client_max_body_size 1m) in front of Dashboards will bound payload size without requiring application changes, though this introduces a dependency on proxy configuration management.
Affected VersionsENISA
Affected Packages
Source: OSV (Open Source Vulnerabilities)
Affects your stack
Affects 2 packages in euvd
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Technical ContextAI · show details
OpenSearch Dashboards is the web-based visualization and management interface for the OpenSearch search and analytics engine, an AWS-maintained fork of Elasticsearch/Kibana. The capabilities route handler is an internal API endpoint that exposes feature capability metadata to the frontend. CWE-1284 (Improper Validation of Specified Quantity in Input) identifies the root cause: the handler fails to enforce an upper bound on the size of inbound HTTP request payloads. Without this guard, a crafted oversized request body can be fully parsed and buffered by the server-side Node.js process, causing memory pressure or CPU saturation. Both the open-source distribution (cpe:2.3:a:opensearch:opensearch_dashboards:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*) and the managed AWS offering (cpe:2.3:a:aws:amazon_opensearch_service:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*) are affected across all tracked versions.
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Severity by source
CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:N/VC:N/VI:N/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N
Network-reachable with no authentication or interaction required; impact is availability-only via resource exhaustion, scope unchanged.
Primary rating from Vendor (AMZN).
CVSS VectorVendor: AMZN
Lifecycle Timeline
2DescriptionCVE.org
Improper input validation in the capabilities route handler in OpenSearch Dashboards - the size of the request payload is not bounded - might allow remote attackers to cause a denial of service via a crafted HTTP request.
Executive ViewAI
OpenSearch Dashboards (self-hosted and Amazon OpenSearch Service) contains an unauthenticated denial-of-service vulnerability that allows any network-connected attacker to exhaust server resources and disrupt dashboard availability without credentials. This affects organizations with exposed instances and directly impacts operational visibility and business intelligence. Patching is critical because the vulnerability requires zero authentication and has minimal attack complexity.
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Threat Intelligence Overview
How this decision was reached
The engine reads each signal below and applies a fixed list of rules from top to bottom. The first rule that matches sets the recommended action – like a statement, every line is shown.
What every action level means
SSVC AssessmentENISA
Priority Score
Attack Technique
Denial of Service attacks render applications or systems unavailable by overwhelming resources or triggering failure conditions.
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EUVD-2026-61064
GHSA-xv32-q7mj-p5x2
NVD
CVE.org
EPSS
Vulnrichment
Exploit-DB