CVE-2026-72683 Uncontrolled Recursion in Elasticsearch Leading to Denial of Service
An authenticated user can trigger uncontrolled recursion in Elasticsearch via the simulate pipeline API, causing a node crash and denial of service.
- 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-2026-72683?
CVE-2026-72683 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in Elastic Elasticsearch, published on 13 Aug 2026. Any signed-in user can exploit it over the network, with no action from the victim.
Official description
A flaw in Elasticsearch allows an authenticated user with the privileges required to invoke the simulate pipeline API endpoint (https://www.elastic.co/docs/api/doc/elasticsearch/operation/operation-ingest-simulate) to submit a request that causes a self-referential data structure to be created. When a specific internal component later processes that structure, the operation recurses without bound and raises a fatal error that is not handled by the surrounding execution path, terminating the affected node process and resulting in a denial of service.
Weakness: CWE-674
Which versions are affected by CVE-2026-72683?
1 open source package ship an affected version, including elasticsearch. It affects 1 product.
| Package | Affected | Fixed in |
|---|---|---|
elasticsearch Bitnami | From 5.0.0 | 8.19.19, 9.3.8, 9.4.4 |
Products include Elastic Elasticsearch.
How do I fix CVE-2026-72683?
Upgrade elasticsearch to a fixed version for your release line: 8.19.19, 9.3.8 or 9.4.4.
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-2026-72683 being exploited?
There is no known exploitation of CVE-2026-72683 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-2026-72683, CLEANSTART-2026-KW24127, CLEANSTART-2026-KX13154, GHSA-5m3v-69rx-39vv, MINI-225r-j965-w79h, MINI-2g55-57fc-5392 and 14 more.