# CVE-2026-72685: Inefficient Algorithmic Complexity in Elasticsearch Leading to Denial of Service

> CVE-2026-72685: Inefficient Algorithmic Complexity in Elasticsearch Leading to Denial of Service. CVSS 4.3 (CVSS 3.1).

Canonical: https://rewindex.com/cve/CVE-2026-72685
Last updated: 2026-09-01T15:04:10Z

- Published: 2026-08-13 19:10 UTC · Updated: 2026-09-01 15:04 UTC · Assigner: elastic
- CVSS: 4.3 (CVSS 3.1) · Severity: Medium · Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L
- EPSS: 0.37%, 30th percentile (scored 2026-10-25)
- CISA KEV: no
- CWE: CWE-407

## Description

A flaw in Elasticsearch allows a low-privileged authenticated user who can index documents to submit a single small document containing a crafted user-supplied input. Processing one such document occupies a worker thread from a bounded pool for a disproportionate amount of time, degrading the availability of indexing operations on the affected node.

## Affected vendors and products

- Elastic: Elasticsearch

## Tracked companies

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

## References

- [CVE record on cve.org](https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2026-72685)
- [NVD entry](https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-72685)
- [https://discuss.elastic.co/t/elasticsearch-8-19-20-9-4-5-security-update-esa-2026-77/389500](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/elasticsearch-8-19-20-9-4-5-security-update-esa-2026-77/389500)

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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-2026-72685 · Markdown: https://rewindex.com/cve/CVE-2026-72685.md · JSON: https://rewindex.com/api/v1/cves/CVE-2026-72685 · Data licensed CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) · Generated 2026-10-26T03:12:12.873Z