# CVE-2026-72648: Cleartext Storage of Sensitive Information in an Environment Variable in Elastic Cloud on Kubernetes Leading to Information Disclosure

> CVE-2026-72648: Cleartext Storage of Sensitive Information in an Environment Variable in Elastic Cloud on Kubernetes Leading to Information Disclosure. CVSS 6.5 (CVSS 3.1).

Canonical: https://rewindex.com/cve/CVE-2026-72648
Last updated: 2026-09-04T20:16:20Z

- Published: 2026-08-13 19:13 UTC · Updated: 2026-09-04 20:16 UTC · Assigner: elastic
- CVSS: 6.5 (CVSS 3.1) · Severity: Medium · Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N
- EPSS: 0.43%, 37th percentile (scored 2026-10-25)
- CISA KEV: no
- CWE: CWE-526

## Description

Cleartext Storage of Sensitive Information in an Environment Variable (CWE-526) in Elastic Cloud on Kubernetes (ECK) can lead to information disclosure via Retrieve Embedded Sensitive Data (CAPEC-37). When ECK reconciles a Fleet Server resource that authenticates to Elasticsearch with a service account token, the token is written into the generated workload specification in cleartext rather than being referenced from the Kubernetes Secret that ECK maintains for the other credentials on the same path. Any principal able to read workload specifications in the affected namespace can therefore read a live Elasticsearch credential, even when Kubernetes RBAC does not grant that principal access to Secrets.

## Affected vendors and products

- Elastic: Eck Operator

## Tracked companies

- [Elastic Cloud](https://rewindex.com/company/elastic-cloud.md)

## References

- [CVE record on cve.org](https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2026-72648)
- [NVD entry](https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-72648)
- [https://discuss.elastic.co/t/elastic-cloud-on-kubernetes-3-5-0-security-update-esa-2026-113/389493](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/elastic-cloud-on-kubernetes-3-5-0-security-update-esa-2026-113/389493)

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_Sources: CVE records from the CVE Program (cve.org). CVE® is a registered trademark of The MITRE Corporation. (https://www.cve.org/) This product uses data from the NVD API but is not endorsed or certified by the NVD. (https://nvd.nist.gov/) Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog from CISA. (https://www.cisa.gov/known-exploited-vulnerabilities-catalog) EPSS scores from FIRST (Exploit Prediction Scoring System). (https://www.first.org/epss/)_


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Canonical: https://rewindex.com/cve/CVE-2026-72648 · Markdown: https://rewindex.com/cve/CVE-2026-72648.md · JSON: https://rewindex.com/api/v1/cves/CVE-2026-72648 · Data licensed CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) · Generated 2026-10-26T02:16:58.289Z