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Fencer Intel
medium 6.5

CVE-2026-72638 json

Uncontrolled Recursion in Elasticsearch Leading to Denial of Service

published 2mo ago modified 2mo ago also BIT-elasticsearch-2026-72638 , EUVD-2026-58284

cvss
6.5
version 3.1, CNA
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
0.4%
EPSS 0.4% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 36%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

Uncontrolled Recursion (CWE-674) in Elasticsearch can lead to denial of service via Input Data Manipulation (CAPEC-153). An authenticated user holding only low-privileged index creation permissions can submit a single request containing a specially crafted, malformed custom analysis definition that is resolved recursively without a cycle or depth check, exhausting the thread stack and terminating the affected node.

Patch / fix

  • bitnami elasticsearch 8.19.20, 9.4.5
  • elastic elasticsearch 8.19.20, 9.4.5
  • elasticsearch elasticsearch 8.19.20, 9.4.5
  • org.elasticsearch elasticsearch 8.19.20, 9.4.5

Is CVE-2026-72638 in your dependencies? Fencer shows which of your repositories are affected as soon as an advisory lands, and opens the fix as a pull request.

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CISA SSVC

Exploitation
none
Automatable
no
Technical impact
partial
Assessed
2mo ago

Exploit prediction

0.42% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 36% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-11).

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
CNA 3.1 6.5 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
OSV 3.1 6.5 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

Affected packages

ecosystem package affected fixed in
bitnami elasticsearch
>=8.0.0, <8.19.20
>=9.0.0, <9.4.5
8.19.20
9.4.5

Affected products

  • Elastic Elasticsearch

Classification

Weakness

References

Sources

Fencer Intel keeps one entry per vulnerability: the CVE id wins, then GHSA, and records that alias each other are merged, except that two CVEs always keep separate entries. The same data is available as JSON.

CPEs and fixed versions use Anchore's correction of NVD's data: Added CPE configurations because not yet analyzed by NVD.