Attack ChainAIDerived
Hypothetical attack flow derived from CVE metadata – not a confirmed exploit chain
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AccessAuthenticate to Kibana with Fleet role
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DeliveryOpen or create agent policy
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ExploitInject crafted values into override field
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ExecutionKibana mints over-privileged Elasticsearch API key
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PersistUse key to access security indices
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ImpactRead or tamper with credentials and audit data
Vulnerability Assessment
| Weakness |
CWE
OWASP Top 10:2025
A05:2025 - Injection
ASVS 5.0
V2 - Validation and Business Logic Input validation, allowlisting
|
| Exploitation Conditions | Exploitation requires an authenticated Kibana session with the Fleet management privilege (CVSS PR:H), the Fleet feature must be enabled on the Kibana deployment, and the attacker must be able to create or modify an agent policy so that the unvalidated configuration override field is processed. No user interaction from another user is required (UI:N) and the attack is network-reachable to the Kibana API (AV:N/AC:L). Limiting factors are the high-privilege prerequisite - environments where Fleet roles are assigned only to administrators already trusted with Elasticsearch security indices gain little additional risk - and the requirement that Fleet be in use at all; pure Kibana visualization deployments without Fleet are not exposed. |
| Impact | The CVSS 3.1 vector AV:N/AC:L/PR:H/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:N scores 7.2 and reflects a realistic profile: network-reachable, low complexity, no user interaction, but requires high privileges (a Fleet management role) and yields high confidentiality and integrity impact with no availability impact. EPSS data was not provided in the input, KEV status is not listed, and no public exploit code has been identified at time of analysis, so this is not yet an opportunistic mass-exploitation target. The real risk is insider-style or post-compromise escalation: any user already granted Fleet privileges - a role often delegated more loosely than full superuser - can pivot into Elasticsearch security indices, which typically store authentication artifacts and audit data. Organizations that treat the Fleet role as low-trust ('just manages agents') are likely the most exposed; the gap between intended trust and actual blast radius is what makes this material despite the PR:H requirement. |
| Exploit ScenarioDerived | A user holding the Kibana Fleet management role - for example, a junior SRE delegated agent lifecycle duties - opens or updates an agent policy and supplies crafted values in the configuration override fields that Fleet does not adequately validate. Kibana issues the affected Elastic Agents API keys carrying broader Elasticsearch privileges than the Fleet role should be able to grant, and the attacker then uses those keys (or pivots through a compromised agent host) to read or modify Elasticsearch security indices containing credentials, role mappings, and audit data. No public proof-of-concept has been published at time of analysis. |
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Alert meAnalysisAIv1 – May 28, 2026
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.
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.
Affected VersionsENISA
Affected Packages
Source: OSV (Open Source Vulnerabilities)
Affects your stack
Affects 1 package in euvd
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Technical ContextAI · show details
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.
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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
2DescriptionCVE.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.
Executive ViewAI
Elastic Kibana's Fleet agent policy management feature contains a privilege escalation vulnerability (CVE-2026-49095, CVSS 7.2) allowing authenticated Fleet administrators to inject elevated Elasticsearch API keys into agent configurations, potentially exposing sensitive security indices to unauthorized access. This impacts organizations using Kibana Fleet for agent management. Leadership should prioritize remediation because compromised agent configurations can grant broader Elasticsearch access than intended, risking exposure of security configuration and audit data.
No vendor-released patch identified at time of analysis. Interim mitigations: (1) Restrict Fleet administrator role access to only essential personnel; (2) audit and validate scope of all Fleet-provisioned Elasticsearch API keys against intended permissions; (3) enable Elasticsearch audit logging for security index access; (4) implement approval workflow for Fleet agent policy changes; (5) monitor Elasticsearch logs for unexpected privilege escalation in agent API key usage.
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
Privilege escalation occurs when an attacker leverages flaws in access control mechanisms to gain permissions beyond what they were originally granted.
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EUVD-2026-33033
GHSA-p9vc-h7rw-q6hq
NVD
CVE.org
EPSS
Vulnrichment
VulDB
Exploit-DB