CVE-2026-42400
Analyzed Analyzed - Analysis Complete
Uncontrolled Resource Consumption in Kibana via Excessive Allocation

Publication date: 2026-05-28

Last updated on: 2026-06-01

Assigner: Elastic

Description
Uncontrolled Resource Consumption (CWE-400) in Kibana can lead to denial of service via Excessive Allocation (CAPEC-130). An authenticated user can send a specially crafted compressed request payload that is processed prior to authorization checks, causing excessive memory and CPU resource consumption that can result in a Kibana instance becoming unresponsive or crashing.
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Meta Information
Published
2026-05-28
Last Modified
2026-06-01
Generated
2026-06-19
AI Q&A
2026-05-29
EPSS Evaluated
2026-06-18
NVD
CVE-2026-42400
Affected Vendors & Products
Showing 3 associated CPEs
Vendor Product Version / Range
elastic kibana From 8.0.0 (inc) to 8.19.16 (exc)
elastic kibana From 9.0.0 (inc) to 9.3.5 (exc)
elastic kibana From 9.4.0 (inc) to 9.4.2 (exc)
Helpful Resources
Exploitability
CWE
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KEV
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CWE ID Description
CWE-400 The product does not properly control the allocation and maintenance of a limited resource.
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Executive Summary

This vulnerability is an Uncontrolled Resource Consumption issue (CWE-400) in Kibana. It allows an authenticated user to send a specially crafted compressed request payload that is processed before authorization checks. This causes excessive memory and CPU usage, which can make the Kibana instance unresponsive or cause it to crash.

Impact Analysis

The impact of this vulnerability is a denial of service condition. Because the specially crafted request consumes excessive system resources, it can cause the Kibana service to become unresponsive or crash, disrupting availability.

Compliance Impact

The provided information does not specify any direct impact of this vulnerability on compliance with common standards and regulations such as GDPR or HIPAA.

Detection Guidance

This vulnerability can be detected by monitoring for unusual spikes in memory and CPU resource utilization on the Kibana instance.

Additionally, checking access logs for large compressed request payloads can help identify potential exploitation attempts.

Indicators of compromise include unexpected crashes or the Kibana instance becoming unresponsive.

  • Use system monitoring tools like 'top' or 'htop' on the Kibana server to observe CPU and memory usage.
  • Inspect Kibana access logs for unusually large compressed requests, for example using: grep -i --binary-files=text 'Content-Encoding: gzip' /path/to/kibana/logs/access.log | awk '{print length, $0}' | sort -nr | head
  • Use network monitoring tools like tcpdump or Wireshark to capture and analyze compressed HTTP requests to Kibana.
Mitigation Strategies

The primary mitigation step is to upgrade Kibana to a fixed version where the vulnerability is resolved.

  • Upgrade to Kibana version 8.19.16 or later if using the 8.x series.
  • Upgrade to Kibana version 9.3.5 or later if using the 9.3.x series.
  • Upgrade to Kibana version 9.4.2 or later if using the 9.4.x series.

No workarounds exist for users unable to upgrade, so applying the update is critical to prevent denial of service.

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