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Medium severity · published Aug 13, 2026
CVE-2026-72638
Uncontrolled Recursion in Elasticsearch Leading to Denial of Service
6.5
CVSS
0.4%
EPSS
No
On KEV
Description
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.
CVSS vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
Attack vector
Network
Complexity
Low
Privileges
Low
User interaction
None
Confidentiality
None
Integrity
None
Availability
High
Scope
Unchanged
Exploitation
Is it being used?
Exploit prediction (EPSS)0.4% · higher than 36% of CVEs
Exploited in the wildNo evidence yet
CISA KEVNot listed
Ransomware campaign useNot known
Affected products
Which versions
EL
Elasticsearch · Elastic
8.0.0 through 8.19.19; 9.0.0 through 9.4.4 · source: vendor, NVD
Affected product
EL
Elasticsearch
Elastic
References
NVD
https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-72638
CVE.org
https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2026-72638
Vendor Advisory
https://discuss.elastic.co/t/elasticsearch-8-19-20-9-4-5-security-update-esa-2026-119/389498
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