CVE-2026-56148 Uncontrolled Recursion in Elasticsearch Leading to Denial of Service
An authenticated user can cause a denial of service in Elasticsearch by submitting a crafted query that triggers uncontrolled recursion and excessive resource consumption.
- Exploited in the wild
- Not known
- Login needed
- Any signed-in user
- Attackable
- Over the internet
- Victim action needed
- Not needed
- Fix
- Available
What is CVE-2026-56148?
CVE-2026-56148 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in Elastic Elasticsearch, published on 1 Jul 2026. Any signed-in user can exploit it over the network, with no action from the victim.
Official description
Uncontrolled Recursion (CWE-674) in Elasticsearch can lead to a denial of service via Excessive Allocation (CAPEC-130). An authenticated user can submit a specially crafted query that causes excessive resource consumption while the request is processed, which may render the affected node unavailable.
Weakness: CWE-674
Which versions are affected by CVE-2026-56148?
1 open source package ship an affected version, including elasticsearch. It affects 1 product.
| Package | Affected | Fixed in |
|---|---|---|
elasticsearch Bitnami | From 8.0.0 | 8.19.17, 9.3.6, 9.4.3 |
Products include Elastic Elasticsearch.
How do I fix CVE-2026-56148?
Upgrade elasticsearch to a fixed version for your release line: 8.19.17, 9.3.6 or 9.4.3.
Upgrade, then put limits on request size, rate and nesting depth so one client cannot exhaust the service. More about Denial of service.
Is CVE-2026-56148 being exploited?
There is no known exploitation of CVE-2026-56148 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-2026-56148, CLEANSTART-2026-MI40861, CLEANSTART-2026-TB71295, GHSA-j6j2-p5xw-w2j8, MINI-2f4x-6w8r-6r62, MINI-37rw-4g2m-hq7h and 18 more.