# CVE-2018-3818: Cross-site scripting in Kibana

> An XSS vulnerability in Kibana allows attackers to steal sensitive information or perform destructive actions on behalf of other users.

- **Severity:** Medium 6.1 (`CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:C/C:L/I:L/A:N`)
- **Exploited in the wild:** Not known
- **Login needed:** Not needed
- **Attackable:** Over the internet
- **Victim action needed:** A user has to click or open something
- **Fix available:** No
- **Published:** 30 Mar 2018
- **Updated:** 5 Aug 2024
- **Also known as:** GHSA-74m8-h6g5-7m87

## What is CVE-2018-3818?

CVE-2018-3818 is a medium-severity cross-site scripting vulnerability in Elastic Kibana, published on 30 Mar 2018. An attacker can exploit it over the internet without logging in, and only if a user opens a file or follows a link.

### Official description

Kibana versions 5.1.1 to 6.1.2 and 5.6.6 had a cross-site scripting (XSS) vulnerability via the colored fields formatter that could allow an attacker to obtain sensitive information from or perform destructive actions on behalf of other Kibana users.

Weakness: CWE-79 (Improper Neutralization of Input During Web Page Generation)

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2018-3818?

It affects 1 product.


Products: Elastic Kibana.

## How do I fix CVE-2018-3818?

No fix has been published for CVE-2018-3818 yet. Limit exposure of the affected software until one is available.

## Is CVE-2018-3818 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2018-3818 in the wild and no public exploit code.

## Other vulnerabilities in Elastic Kibana

- [CVE-2019-7609](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2019-7609/): Kibana Arbitrary Code Execution (critical 9.8, exploited in the wild)
- [CVE-2025-25015](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2025-25015/): Kibana arbitrary code execution via prototype pollution (critical 9.9)
- [CVE-2024-37288](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2024-37288/): Deserialization in Kibana (critical 9.9)
- [CVE-2023-31415](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2023-31415/): Code injection in Kibana (critical 9.9)
- [CVE-2018-17245](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2018-17245/): Information disclosure in Kibana (critical 9.8)

## Fix prompt for AI coding agents

```text
Check this codebase for CVE-2018-3818 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2018-3818 is a medium-severity cross-site scripting vulnerability in Elastic Kibana, published on 30 Mar 2018. An attacker can exploit it over the internet without logging in, and only if a user opens a file or follows a link.
Exploitation: There is no known exploitation of CVE-2018-3818 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Affected product: Elastic Kibana. No package-level version data is available, so check the vendor advisory linked from the reference page.

Task:
1. Search the dependency manifests and lockfiles (for example package.json, package-lock.json, requirements.txt, poetry.lock, uv.lock, pom.xml, build.gradle, go.mod, Cargo.lock, Gemfile.lock) and any Dockerfiles for the affected packages, including transitive dependencies.
2. If an affected version is in use, upgrade it to the fixed version for its release line with the project's package manager, so the lockfile is regenerated. Prefer the smallest upgrade that fixes it.
3. If there is no fix, or the upgrade would break the build, do not guess: explain the risk and the safest workaround instead.
4. Run the tests and summarise what changed and why.
5. If nothing in the project is affected, say so and change nothing.

Reference: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2018-3818/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2018-3818/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2018-3818
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2018-3818
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2018-3818

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2018-3818/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.