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Elastic APM Server EUVDEUVD-2026-116081

| CVE-2026-115716 MEDIUM
Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling (CWE-770)
2026-11-03 elastic
6.5
CVSS 3.1 · Vendor: elastic
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Attack ChainAIDerived

Hypothetical attack flow derived from CVE metadata – not a confirmed exploit chain

  1. Access
    Reach APM Server OTLP HTTP endpoint
  2. Delivery
    Send oversized serialized OTLP payload
  3. Exploit
    Unbounded memory allocation (CWE-770)
  4. Execution
    APM Server exhausts memory and terminates
  5. Impact
    APM/OTLP data intake halted until restart

Vulnerability Assessment

Weakness
CWE
OWASP Top 10:2025
A06:2025 - Insecure Design
ASVS 5.0
V2 - Validation and Business Logic Resource allocation limits
MITRE ATT&CK

1 technique across 1 tactic: Impact

The technique list with ATT&CK links and the kill-chain view is part of the Basic plan and up.

Exploitation Conditions

The attacker must be able to send OpenTelemetry (OTLP) data to APM Server over HTTP - i.e., network reachability to the APM Server OTLP/HTTP intake endpoint - and the CVSS PR:L metric indicates some privilege/authentication level is required to submit that data (authentication requirements beyond PR:L are not detailed in the available sources). The specific trigger is an oversized serialized OTLP payload that APM Server allocates without throttling. Limiting factors: this affects only deployments exposing the OTLP/HTTP intake, exploitation needs the PR:L privilege rather than being fully anonymous, and impact is confined to availability (service crash/restart) with no confidentiality or integrity effect; the vulnerable-versions boundary should be confirmed against ESA-2026-236.

Impact

This is a moderate-severity availability-only flaw (CVSS 6.5, vector AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H), not a top-priority emergency. The signals are internally consistent: the vector scores confidentiality and integrity as None and only availability as High, matching the CWE-770 resource-exhaustion description where an oversized OTLP payload exhausts APM Server memory and forces a terminate/restart. The PR:L metric indicates exploitation requires some privilege level, so this is not an unauthenticated internet-wide crash. The vuln.today decision label is 'this_month' (routine patch cadence), consistent with a DoS that has no code-execution or data-disclosure impact. No EPSS score, no CISA KEV listing, and no PoC/exploit reference are present in the supplied data - the only reference is the vendor security advisory (ESA-2026-236). Exploitation status: no public exploit identified at time of analysis. Net: a real but bounded operational-availability issue affecting the APM/OTLP intake pipeline, worth scheduled patching rather than crisis response. EPSS is absent (not an error) so probabilistic exploitation likelihood cannot be quantified from this data.

Exploit ScenarioDerived

An attacker with the ability to reach APM Server's OTLP-over-HTTP intake endpoint sends a crafted, oversized serialized data payload that APM Server allocates without limit, exhausting its memory and causing the process to terminate. The outage halts ingestion of all APM and OpenTelemetry data until APM Server is restarted. The CVSS PR:L metric indicates the attacker needs some privilege level to reach/submit to the intake, and no public exploit code was identified in the supplied data.

This Month Plan within 30 days. Why: MEDIUM severity (CVSS 4.0-6.9).
No patch listed yet

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AnalysisAIv1 – Nov 03, 2026

Memory exhaustion in Elastic APM Server's OpenTelemetry (OTLP/HTTP) intake lets an attacker who can submit OTLP data drive the server out of memory and terminate it, halting all APM and OpenTelemetry ingestion until the service restarts. The flaw is a resource-allocation-without-limits weakness (CWE-770, CAPEC-231 oversized serialized payloads) rated CVSS 6.5 with availability-only impact (AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H), so it is a moderate-severity denial of service rather than a confidentiality or integrity risk, and only deployments that expose the OTLP/HTTP endpoint are reachable by this path. No public exploit code identified at time of analysis and no CISA KEV listing; vuln.today priority is this_month, and vendor fixes are published as APM Server 8.19.24, 9.4.9 and 9.5.6 under ESA-2026-236.

RemediationAI

Upgrade Elastic APM Server to 8.19.24, 9.4.9 or 9.5.6 as listed in Elastic Security Advisory ESA-2026-236 (https://discuss.elastic.co/t/apm-server-8-19-24-9-4-9-9-5-6-security-update-esa-2026-236/391373), selecting the release that matches your deployment branch. If upgrading cannot be done immediately, reduce exposure by restricting network access to the OTLP/HTTP intake endpoint so that only trusted Elastic APM agents and OpenTelemetry collectors can submit data - the trade-off is that any legitimately external senders will lose ingestion - and monitor APM Server memory so an oversized payload can be spotted and the process restarted promptly, since a crash stops APM and OpenTelemetry intake until restart. The supplied sources do not describe configurable payload-size limits or other built-in throttling controls for this intake.

Affected VersionsENISA

APM Server 9.5.0 ≤9.5.5
APM Server 9.0.0 ≤9.4.8
APM Server 8.3.0 ≤8.19.23

Affected Packages

euvd apm_server no fix

Source: OSV (Open Source Vulnerabilities)

Affects your stack

Affects 1 package in euvd

Checking this CVE against your own stacks and servers is part of the Basic plan and up.

Technical ContextAI · show details

Elastic APM Server is the ingestion and aggregation component of the Elastic observability stack: Elastic APM agents and OpenTelemetry SDKs/collectors ship trace, metric and log data to it, including over the OTLP/HTTP intake. The root cause class here is CWE-770 (Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling), expressed as CAPEC-231 oversized serialized data payloads: the server processes serialized OTLP payloads without adequately bounding the resources they consume, so a single overly large serialized request can force allocation that exhausts memory and kills the process. The outcome is memory exhaustion and termination, not memory corruption or code execution, which is consistent with the assessed vector's C:N/I:N/A:H profile. Reachability requires network access to the APM Server OTLP/HTTP intake endpoint, and the PR:L metric in the assessed vector indicates that some privilege or authentication level is needed to submit data; the available sources do not detail which credentials satisfy that requirement, and the exact internal trigger path is not described beyond the oversized serialized payload. The precise vulnerable-version boundary is not enumerated in the supplied data and should be confirmed against ESA-2026-236, which names 8.19.24, 9.4.9 and 9.5.6 as the fixed releases.

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Severity by source

Vendor (elastic) PRIMARY 6.5 MEDIUM
AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
vuln.today AI 6.5 MEDIUM

Remote OTLP/HTTP intake (AV:N), single oversized payload triggers it (AC:L), submission needs a privilege level (PR:L), no user interaction, and only availability is impacted (C:N/I:N/A:H).

3.1 AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
4.0 AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:L/UI:N/VC:N/VI:N/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N

Primary rating from Vendor (elastic).

CVSS VectorVendor: elastic

Attack Vector
Network
Attack Complexity
Low
Privileges Required
Low
User Interaction
None
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality
None
Integrity
None
Availability
High

DescriptionCVE.org

Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling (CWE-770) in APM Server can lead to denial of service via Oversized Serialized Data Payloads (CAPEC-231). An attacker who can send OpenTelemetry (OTLP) data to APM Server over HTTP can cause APM Server to exhaust its memory and terminate. This stops the intake of APM and OpenTelemetry data until APM Server restarts.

Threat Intelligence Overview

Prevalence
Medium
Elastic APM observability component; common in Elastic Stack shops, not universal
Social Media
1
Sightings
Data Quality
3 sources
Confidence: Low

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.

SignalValue
Severity MEDIUM
CISA KEV No
Public POC No
EPSS N/A
Patch available No
Active threat No
Deciding rule
MEDIUM severity (CVSS 4.0-6.9)
What every action level means
Emergency Immediate action required. Criteria: CRITICAL + in CISA KEV (actively exploited) without patch, OR CRITICAL + EPSS > 30% without patch, OR CRITICAL + active threat signals without patch.
Act Now Prioritize within 24-48h. Criteria: in KEV with patch available, OR CRITICAL + public POC, OR HIGH + EPSS > 10%, OR CRITICAL + active threat, OR any CRITICAL severity.
This Week Schedule remediation this week. Criteria: HIGH severity (CVSS 7.0-8.9). Patch within normal change window.
This Month Plan within 30 days. Criteria: MEDIUM severity (CVSS 4.0-6.9), lower exploitation probability. Include in regular patch cycle.
Monitor Track and reassess. Criteria: LOW severity (CVSS 0.1-3.9), minimal exploitation risk. No immediate action needed.

SSVC AssessmentENISA

SSVC Decision· derived
Scheduled
Exploitation
None
System Exposure· derived
Open
Automatable
No
Human Impact· derived
Medium
Technical Impact
Partial

Priority Score

32
Low Medium High Critical
KEV: 0
EPSS: 0
CVSS: +32
PoC: 0
Weaponized: 0
Threat intel: 0
Gov advisory: 0

Attack Technique

Denial of Service attacks render applications or systems unavailable by overwhelming resources or triggering failure conditions.

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