CVE-2021-37937 Elasticsearch privilege escalation
A compromised Fleet-Server service account can escalate privileges to super-user due to incorrect API key creation logic in Elasticsearch.
- Exploited in the wild
- Not known
- Login needed
- An administrator
- Attackable
- Over the internet
- Victim action needed
- Not needed
- Fix
- Available
What is CVE-2021-37937?
CVE-2021-37937 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Elastic Elasticsearch, published on 22 Nov 2023. An attacker needs administrator access to exploit it, with no action from the victim.
Official description
An issue was found with how API keys are created with the Fleet-Server service account. When an API key is created with a service account, it is possible that the API key could be created with higher privileges than intended. Using this vulnerability, a compromised Fleet-Server service account could escalate themselves to a super-user.
Weakness: CWE-269
Which versions are affected by CVE-2021-37937?
1 open source package ship an affected version, including elasticsearch. It affects 1 product.
| Package | Affected | Fixed in |
|---|---|---|
elasticsearch Bitnami | From 7.13.0 | 7.14.1 |
Products include Elastic Elasticsearch.
How do I fix CVE-2021-37937?
Upgrade elasticsearch to 7.14.1 or later.
Is CVE-2021-37937 being exploited?
There is no known exploitation of CVE-2021-37937 in the wild and no public exploit code.
Other vulnerabilities in Elastic Elasticsearch
- CVE-2015-1427 Elasticsearch Groovy Scripting Engine Remote Code Execution
- CVE-2014-3120 Elasticsearch Remote Code Execution
- CVE-2015-5377 Code injection in n/a
- CVE-2026-72649 Deserialization of Untrusted Data in Elasticsearch Leading to Remote Code Execution
- CVE-2026-72642 Use of Out-of-range Pointer Offset in the Elasticsearch Machine Learning Native Inference Process
Sources
Also known as BIT-elasticsearch-2021-37937, GHSA-4qh7-cr89-jx92, UBUNTU-CVE-2021-37937.