CVE-2026-72672 Incorrect Authorization in Kibana Leading to Disclosure of Elastic Defend Endpoint Event Data
Authenticated users with Elastic Security privileges can bypass Elasticsearch index restrictions to read sensitive endpoint event data, including credentials.
- 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-2026-72672?
CVE-2026-72672 is a high-severity missing authorization 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
The Elastic Security capability that suggests existing field values while a user authors endpoint policy artifacts queries Elastic Defend event data with Kibana's internal Elasticsearch account instead of the account of the requesting user. Only Kibana feature privileges are verified, and the caller's Elasticsearch index privileges are not. An authenticated user who holds Elastic Security feature privileges but no read access to the Elastic Defend event indices can therefore retrieve field values from that data, including process command line arguments, which commonly contain tokens, credentials, connection strings, and other sensitive operational detail from protected hosts.
Weakness: CWE-863
Which versions are affected by CVE-2026-72672?
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 |
elk Bitnami | From 9.1.0 | 9.4.5 |
Products include Elastic Kibana.
How do I fix CVE-2026-72672?
Upgrade kibana to 9.4.5 or later.
Upgrade, and check permissions on every request on the server, not only in the interface. More about Missing authorization.
Is CVE-2026-72672 being exploited?
There is no known exploitation of CVE-2026-72672 in the wild and no public exploit code.
Other vulnerabilities in Elastic Kibana
Sources
Also known as BIT-elk-2026-72672, BIT-kibana-2026-72672, GHSA-6c3r-vhrx-4vh9, MINI-4qcx-266x-7m29, MINI-hhq3-426c-5rxv, MINI-p4cc-3793-9r82 and 1 more.