Attack ChainAIDerived
Hypothetical attack flow derived from CVE metadata – not a confirmed exploit chain
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AccessObtain or compromise read-only Kibana credentials
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DeliveryIdentify connector reporting API endpoint
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ExploitCraft HTTP request with oversized query expression
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ExecutionSubmit single request to reporting endpoint
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PersistKibana evaluation loop consumes entire event loop
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ImpactAll users receive errors; service down until admin restarts process
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 | Exploitation requires a valid Kibana account with at minimum read-only privileges - unauthenticated access is insufficient. The vulnerable code path is the connector reporting operation's query expression handler; this feature must be reachable by the attacker's role. No non-default configuration setting is identified as a prerequisite: the flaw appears to exist in standard Kibana deployments wherever the reporting connector feature is accessible. Limiting factors: the attacker must authenticate (PR:L per CVSS), must be able to reach the Kibana network endpoint (blocked in air-gapped or strictly network-segmented environments), and must target the specific reporting connector endpoint. There is no user interaction required and attack complexity is low once credentials are obtained. The exploit does not exfiltrate data or modify state - its sole impact is availability. |
| Impact | The CVSS base score of 6.5 (Medium) with vector AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H correctly captures the key risk dimensions. The network-accessible attack vector (AV:N) and low complexity (AC:L) mean exploitation requires no special network position or timing. The PR:L metric is the critical limiting factor: an attacker must hold a valid Kibana account - but only read-only access is required, dramatically lowering the barrier compared to admin-only flaws. The availability impact is rated High (A:H) and is not overstated: a single request causes a full-process hang requiring manual intervention to restore service, meaning the practical availability impact is total rather than partial. Confidentiality and integrity are unaffected (C:N/I:N), keeping the overall score from reaching Critical. No EPSS data was provided and the CVE is not listed in CISA KEV, so there is no confirmed evidence of active exploitation. The absence of a public POC lowers immediate opportunistic risk. However, the attack is trivially reproducible once an attacker understands the endpoint, making the exploitation probability non-negligible for any organization where low-privilege users have grievances or where credentials are at risk of compromise. |
| Exploit ScenarioDerived | An internal analyst holding a read-only Kibana account - or an external attacker who has phished or brute-forced such credentials - sends a single HTTP POST request to the connector reporting endpoint containing a pathologically large query expression. Kibana's evaluation engine begins processing the oversized expression, consuming the entire Node.js event loop, and all subsequent requests from legitimate users return errors or time out. The attack persists until a Kibana administrator manually restarts the process, resulting in a complete operational outage for any team relying on Kibana for dashboards, alerting, or SIEM visibility. |
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Alert meAnalysisAIv1 – Aug 13, 2026
Denial-of-service in Kibana's connector reporting endpoint allows any authenticated user - including those with read-only privileges - to permanently incapacitate the Kibana process with a single crafted request. The flaw stems from accepting arbitrarily large query expressions without size limits, causing the process to consume unbounded CPU evaluating the expression and rendering the instance unable to serve any user until manually restarted. No public exploit has been identified, but the low privilege bar (read-only access) and single-request reproducibility make this an attractive target for internal threat actors or compromised low-privilege accounts seeking to disrupt SOC or observability operations.
RemediationAI
Upgrade Kibana to version 8.19.20 (for the 8.x branch) or 9.4.5 (for the 9.x branch), as detailed in Elastic security advisory ESA-2026-137 at https://discuss.elastic.co/t/kibana-8-19-20-9-4-5-security-update-esa-2026-137/389511. These are the vendor-confirmed fixed releases. If immediate patching is not possible, restrict access to the connector reporting endpoint to trusted users or networks via Kibana's role-based access control or a reverse proxy ACL - note this trade-off may break legitimate reporting workflows for affected users. Additionally, placing Kibana behind a web application firewall or reverse proxy configured to enforce request body size limits can serve as a compensating control by rejecting oversized payloads before they reach the Kibana process, though the precise payload size threshold that triggers the vulnerability is not confirmed in available data. Monitor for unexpected Kibana process hangs as a detection signal.
Affected VersionsENISA
Affected Packages
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
Kibana (cpe:2.3:a:elastic:kibana:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*) is Elastic's browser-based analytics and visualization layer for the Elastic Stack. The connector reporting subsystem accepts query expressions from users to define report content. The root cause, CWE-770 (Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling), manifests as a missing guard on the size of the incoming query expression: the expression is passed directly to the evaluation engine with no length cap, token limit, or timeout fence. An expression crafted to be excessively large causes the evaluator to spin in a computationally expensive parse/evaluation loop indefinitely, exhausting the Node.js event loop and preventing any other request from being processed. CAPEC-130 (Excessive Allocation) describes this attack class precisely - the attacker forces the server to allocate disproportionate compute resources relative to the size of the input, with no per-request budget enforcement.
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Severity by source
AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
Network-reachable endpoint, low complexity; read-only auth required (PR:L); no confidentiality or integrity impact, total availability loss confirmed.
Primary rating from Vendor (elastic).
CVSS VectorVendor: elastic
DescriptionCVE.org
Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling (CWE-770) in Kibana can lead to denial of service via Excessive Allocation (CAPEC-130). A query expression accepted by a connector reporting operation was processed without any limit on its size, and an oversized expression caused the Kibana process to spend an unbounded amount of time evaluating it. An authenticated user with read-only privileges was able to send a single request that left Kibana unable to serve any user until the process was restarted.
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-2026-58244
GHSA-qp79-577v-7mj4
NVD
CVE.org
EPSS
Vulnrichment
VulDB
Exploit-DB