Assessment
Why it matters
EPSS is 0.3%; technical severity is CVSS 6.5.
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.
Who should care
- Teams operating Kibana
- Vulnerability and exposure management teams
- Security operations teams monitoring exploitation activity
Response plan
What I would do
- Confirm whether Kibana is present in the environment.
- Identify affected versions and establish whether vulnerable services are exposed or reachable.
- Vendor advisory from discuss.elastic.co
- Review relevant security telemetry for evidence of attempted or successful exploitation.
- Document the remediation decision and track it to verified completion.
Treatment intelligence
Remediation intelligence
Vendor sources are listed before government and third-party guidance. Confirm product applicability and change prerequisites before deployment.
Technical details
- CVSS vector
- CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:H/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:N
- CWE
- CWE-20
- Affected versions
- Elastic Kibana (Start Including 8.0.0, End Excluding 8.19.16 | Start Including 9.0.0, End Excluding 9.3.5 | Start Including 9.4.0, End Excluding 9.4.2)
- Fixed versions
- Elastic Kibana (Fixed from 8.19.16, 9.3.5, 9.4.2)
- Published
- 28 May 2026
- Attack vector
- Network
- Privileges required
- High
- User interaction
- None
Signal timeline
- CVE published
- Latest EPSS score: 0.3%
- Signal calculated at 11