CVE-2026-72638: Uncontrolled Recursion in Elasticsearch Leading to Denial of Service
Medium · CVSS 6.5 (CVSS 3.1)EPSS 0.42%, 36th percentilePublished Updated Assigner: elastic
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.
Vector CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H · CWE-674
Tracked companies
Mapped from the CVE’s affected-product data, NVD CPE matches, vendor advisories or package feeds. A mapping means the vendor’s software is named, not that its hosted service was exposed.
Status incidents that name it
No tracked status incident names this CVE.
Affected vendors and products
Elastic: Elasticsearch
References
- CVE record on cve.org (opens in new tab)
- NVD entry (opens in new tab)
- discuss.elastic.co/t/elasticsearch-8-19-20-9-4-5-security-update-esa-2026-119/389498 (opens in new tab)
- CVE records from the CVE Program (cve.org). CVE® is a registered trademark of The MITRE Corporation. (opens in new tab)
- This product uses data from the NVD API but is not endorsed or certified by the NVD. (opens in new tab)
- Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog from CISA. (opens in new tab)
- EPSS scores from FIRST (Exploit Prediction Scoring System). (opens in new tab)