CVE-2026-56145
Received Received - Intake

Uncontrolled Resource Consumption in Elasticsearch

Publication date: 2026-07-21

Last updated on: 2026-07-21

Assigner: Elastic

Description
Uncontrolled Resource Consumption (CWE-400) in Elasticsearch can lead to denial of service via Excessive Allocation (CAPEC-130). A low-privileged authenticated user with permission to execute EQL sequence queries against an index they control can send a specially crafted query that triggers excessive memory consumption, causing the Elasticsearch node to crash.

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Meta Information

Published
2026-07-21
Last Modified
2026-07-21
Generated
2026-07-22
AI Q&A
2026-07-21
EPSS Evaluated
N/A
NVD
CVE-2026-56145

Affected Vendors & Products

Showing 4 associated CPEs
Vendor Product Version / Range
elastic elasticsearch *
elastic elasticsearch to 8.19.18 (exc)
elastic elasticsearch to 9.3.7 (exc)
elastic elasticsearch to 9.4.4 (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 is an uncontrolled resource consumption vulnerability in Elasticsearch where a low-privileged authenticated user can send a specially crafted EQL sequence query to an index they control. This triggers excessive memory consumption, causing the Elasticsearch node to crash due to denial of service.

Detection Guidance

Detecting this vulnerability requires monitoring Elasticsearch for excessive memory consumption during EQL sequence queries. Check Elasticsearch logs for crashes or high memory usage patterns. Use system commands like 'ps aux | grep elasticsearch' to monitor process memory and 'curl -XGET 'http://localhost:9200/_nodes/stats/jvm' to inspect JVM heap usage.

Impact Analysis

The vulnerability can lead to denial of service, making Elasticsearch nodes unavailable. This disrupts search and indexing operations, potentially causing downtime for applications relying on Elasticsearch.

Compliance Impact

This vulnerability could impact compliance with GDPR and HIPAA by enabling denial-of-service attacks that disrupt data availability. GDPR requires maintaining data availability (Article 32), while HIPAA mandates ensuring access to ePHI (Security Rule). A crash from excessive memory consumption may violate these requirements.

Mitigation Strategies

Apply the latest Elasticsearch security patches immediately. Restrict EQL sequence query permissions to only trusted users. Limit memory allocation for Elasticsearch nodes by adjusting JVM heap settings. Monitor and cap query execution time to prevent prolonged resource consumption.

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