Assessment
Why it matters
EPSS is 0.2%; technical severity is CVSS 6.5.
Uncontrolled Recursion (CWE-674) in Elasticsearch can lead to denial of service via a specially crafted search request submitted by a low-privileged authenticated user. A user with read-level index access can submit a request that triggers unbounded recursive processing within the Elasticsearch query evaluation component, causing a fatal error that terminates the affected node. In single-node deployments, this results in complete service outage; in multi-node clusters, it causes repeated node restarts and sustained availability degradation.
Who should care
- Teams operating Elasticsearch
- Vulnerability and exposure management teams
- Security operations teams monitoring exploitation activity
Response plan
What I would do
- Confirm whether Elasticsearch 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:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
- CWE
- CWE-674
- Affected versions
- Elastic Elasticsearch (Start Including 8.19.0, End Excluding 8.19.19 | Start Including 9.3.0, End Excluding 9.3.8 | Start Including 9.4.0, End Excluding 9.4.4)
- Fixed versions
- Elastic Elasticsearch (Fixed from 8.19.19, 9.3.8, 9.4.4)
- Published
- 21 July 2026
- Attack vector
- Network
- Privileges required
- Low
- User interaction
- None
Signal timeline
- CVE published
- Latest EPSS score: 0.2%
- Signal calculated at 11