Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures assigned an identifier CVE-2014-3120 to the following vulnerability:

Name: CVE-2014-3120 URL: http://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvename.cgi?name=CVE-2014-3120 Assigned: 20140429 Reference: EXPLOIT-DB:33370 Reference: http://www.exploit-db.com/exploits/33370 Reference: http://bouk.co/blog/elasticsearch-rce/ Reference: http://www.rapid7.com/db/modules/exploit/multi/elasticsearch/scriptmvelrce Reference: https://www.found.no/foundation/elasticsearch-security/#staying-safe-while-developing-with-elasticsearch Reference: http://www.securityfocus.com/bid/67731 Reference: OSVDB:106949 Reference: http://www.osvdb.org/106949

The default configuration in Elasticsearch before 1.2 enables dynamic scripting, which allows remote attackers to execute arbitrary MVEL expressions and Java code via the source parameter to search. NOTE: this only violates the vendor's intended security policy if the user does not run Elasticsearch in its own independent virtual machine.

As noted in <http://bouk.co/blog/elasticsearch-rce/>, adding "script.disabledynamic: true" to elasticsearch.yml, and ensuring Elasticsearch only binds to localhost, can help mitigate this issue.