CVE-2026-72648 Information disclosure in Eck Operator

Medium 6.5 Published 13 Aug 2026 Updated 13 Aug 2026

Attackers with namespace read access can retrieve cleartext Elasticsearch service account tokens from workload specifications, bypassing Kubernetes Secret protections.

Exploited in the wild: Not known
Login needed: Any signed-in user
Attackable: Over the internet
Victim action needed: Not needed
Fix: None listed

What is CVE-2026-72648?

CVE-2026-72648 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Elastic Eck Operator, published on 13 Aug 2026. Any signed-in user can exploit it over the network, with no action from the victim.

Official description

Cleartext Storage of Sensitive Information in an Environment Variable (CWE-526) in Elastic Cloud on Kubernetes (ECK) can lead to information disclosure via Retrieve Embedded Sensitive Data (CAPEC-37). When ECK reconciles a Fleet Server resource that authenticates to Elasticsearch with a service account token, the token is written into the generated workload specification in cleartext rather than being referenced from the Kubernetes Secret that ECK maintains for the other credentials on the same path. Any principal able to read workload specifications in the affected namespace can therefore read a live Elasticsearch credential, even when Kubernetes RBAC does not grant that principal access to Secrets.

Weakness: CWE-526

Which versions are affected by CVE-2026-72648?

It affects 1 product.

Products include Elastic Elastic Cloud on Kubernetes.

How do I fix CVE-2026-72648?

No fix has been published for CVE-2026-72648 yet. Limit exposure of the affected software until one is available.

Is CVE-2026-72648 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2026-72648 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Sources

Also known as GHSA-994r-4f38-cvgv.