CVE-2026-72631 Improper Privilege Management in Kibana Fleet Leading to Over-Scoped Elastic Agent API Keys
Attackers can escalate privileges via over-scoped API keys in Kibana Fleet, allowing unauthorized document insertion and index mapping changes.
- 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-2026-72631?
CVE-2026-72631 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Elastic Kibana, published on 13 Aug 2026. Any signed-in user can exploit it over the network, with no action from the victim.
Official description
Improper Privilege Management (CWE-269) in Kibana Fleet can lead to privilege escalation via Privilege Escalation (CAPEC-233). An integration policy may optionally declare extra data streams that the integration writes to, which Fleet adds to the Elasticsearch API key issued to Elastic Agents enrolled in the corresponding agent policy. The resulting key allows new documents to be inserted and index mappings to be extended for specific indices. The key does not allow reading, updating, or deleting existing documents
Weakness: CWE-269
Which versions are affected by CVE-2026-72631?
2 open source packages ship an affected version, including kibana and elk. It affects 1 product.
| Package | Affected | Fixed in |
|---|---|---|
kibana Bitnami | From 9.1.0 | 9.4.5, 9.5.1 |
elk Bitnami | From 9.1.0 | 9.4.5, 9.5.1 |
Products include Elastic Kibana.
How do I fix CVE-2026-72631?
Upgrade kibana to a fixed version for your release line: 9.4.5 or 9.5.1.
Is CVE-2026-72631 being exploited?
There is no known exploitation of CVE-2026-72631 in the wild and no public exploit code.
Other vulnerabilities in Elastic Kibana
Sources
Also known as BIT-elk-2026-72631, BIT-kibana-2026-72631, GHSA-fgm9-rcvc-p7vm, MINI-546v-jm58-7qqh, MINI-cfx5-2pcq-qxmh, MINI-gcpp-crx7-92mq and 2 more.