Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling (CWE-770) in Elasticsearch can lead to a denial of service via Excessive Allocation (CAPEC-130). A user with elevated privileges can submit a specially crafted request that causes excessive memory consumption, which may render the affected node unavailable.

Missing Authorization (CWE-862) in the Elasticsearch custom inference service can lead to information disclosure via Privilege Abuse (CAPEC-122). A user holding only inference execution privileges could cause outbound inference traffic to be directed to a destination of their choosing and could cause administrator-provisioned credentials to be exposed.

Inconsistent Interpretation of HTTP Requests ('HTTP Request Smuggling') (CWE-444) in Elasticsearch can lead to information disclosure via HTTP Request Smuggling (CAPEC-33). Under specific proxy deployment configurations, a network attacker could obtain confidential responses intended for other authenticated users.

Memory Allocation with Excessive Size Value (CWE-789) in Elasticsearch can lead to denial of service via Excessive Allocation (CAPEC-130). An authenticated user holding only read privileges on a single index can submit one small, specially crafted search request that causes an excessively large memory allocation, exhausting the JVM heap and terminating the affected node.

Uncontrolled Recursion (CWE-674) in Elasticsearch can lead to denial of service via Serialized Data with Nested Payloads (CAPEC-230). An authenticated user holding only read privileges on a single index can submit one specially crafted search request whose deeply nested structure is processed without a depth limit, exhausting the thread stack and terminating the affected node.

A flaw in Elasticsearch allows an authenticated user holding only read privileges to submit a small search request containing a crafted user-supplied input. Processing that input causes a specific internal component to allocate memory without any upper bound, and the allocation occurs outside the scope of the existing memory accounting controls that were intended to constrain it. The resulting out-of-memory condition is fatal and terminates the affected node process, causing a denial of service.

A flaw in Elasticsearch allows a low-privileged authenticated user who can index documents to submit a single small document containing a crafted user-supplied input. Processing one such document occupies a worker thread from a bounded pool for a disproportionate amount of time, degrading the availability of indexing operations on the affected node.

A flaw in Elasticsearch allows a low-privileged authenticated user to submit a single request containing a crafted user-supplied input. A specific internal component validates the input using a recursive routine and applies no bound to the length of the value being validated, so the validation causes the thread to exhaust its stack. The resulting fatal error is not handled by the surrounding execution paths and terminates the affected node process, producing a denial of service.

A flaw in Elasticsearch allows a low-privileged authenticated user to submit a single small request containing a forged opaque identifier. Elasticsearch decodes and deserializes the identifier before confirming that it was legitimately issued by the cluster, and a size value carried inside the identifier drives an allocation that is neither capped nor accounted for by the available memory-usage controls. The resulting out-of-memory condition is fatal and terminates the affected node process, resulting in a denial of service.

Uncontrolled Recursion (CWE-674) in the Elasticsearch wildcard matching helper can lead to a denial of service via Excessive Allocation (CAPEC-130). The matcher used to resolve wildcard patterns against names is implemented recursively and had no bound on recursion depth or on the total number of match operations performed. A search request containing a wildcard pattern with a large number of wildcard groups, evaluated against a sufficiently long name, exhausts the thread stack. Elasticsearch treats a stack overflow as an unrecoverable condition and shuts the node down, so the request terminates the affected node rather than failing gracefully.

Uncontrolled Recursion (CWE-674) in Elasticsearch can lead to denial of service via Input Data Manipulation (CAPEC-153). An authenticated user holding only low-privileged index creation permissions can submit a single request containing a specially crafted, malformed custom analysis definition that is resolved recursively without a cycle or depth check, exhausting the thread stack and terminating the affected node.

The native inference process that Elasticsearch uses to evaluate uploaded machine learning models accepts a model operation that computes a memory address from an offset supplied inside the model, without validating that the offset stays within the bounds of the underlying storage. A user with the privileges required to upload and deploy a trained model can craft a model that reads and writes memory outside the intended allocation. The result is heap corruption that crashes the inference process, and, with sufficient control over the heap layout, could allow arbitrary code execution in the context of that process.

Memory Allocation with Excessive Size Value (CWE-789) in the ES|QL query processing of Elasticsearch can lead to denial of service via Excessive Allocation (CAPEC-130). An authenticated user able to submit ES|QL queries could send a specially crafted query whose evaluation allocates an unbounded amount of heap memory, exhausting the available heap on the receiving node and causing the node to become unavailable.

Incorrect Authorization (CWE-863) in Elasticsearch can allow an authenticated user with limited index privileges to exploit insufficient authorization controls in the ingest simulation feature. By targeting indices they are not authorized to access directly, the user can cause those indices' configured ingest pipelines to execute and return their output, potentially disclosing data processed or enriched by those pipelines. Additionally, the same feature can be used to retrieve index mapping metadata for indices the user are not authorized to access directly.

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.

Uncontrolled Recursion (CWE-674) in Elasticsearch can lead to denial of service via a specially crafted search request submitted by a low-privileged authenticated user. A user with read-level index access can submit a request that triggers unbounded recursive processing within the Elasticsearch query evaluation component, causing a fatal error that terminates the affected node. In single-node deployments, this results in complete service outage; in multi-node clusters, it causes repeated node restarts and sustained availability degradation.

Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling (CWE-770) in Elasticsearch can lead to a denial of service via Excessive Allocation (CAPEC-130). A user with elevated privileges can submit a specially crafted machine learning request that causes excessive memory consumption, which may render the affected node unavailable.

It was reported that Elasticsearch versions 1.3.0-1.3.7 and 1.4.0-1.4.2 have vulnerabilities in the Groovy scripting engine. The vulnerability allows an attacker to construct Groovy scripts that escape the sandbox and execute shell commands as the user running the Elasticsearch Java VM.

Upstream bug report: https://github.com/elasticsearch/elasticsearch/issues/9655

Upstream fixes: 1.3: https://github.com/elasticsearch/elasticsearch/commit/69735b0f4ab9ad7df4b82e8c917589b52cb9978c 1.4: https://github.com/elasticsearch/elasticsearch/commit/4e952b2d75de6ca4caf4b6743462714f3b60d07f 1.x: https://github.com/elasticsearch/elasticsearch/commit/716f0b24dc5414616e8dc0590dbfcfa0081be892

Mitigation: Users can address the vulnerability by setting script.groovy.sandbox.enabled to false in config/elasticsearch.yml and restarting the node.

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.

Improper Validation of Array Index (CWE-129) in multiple protocol parser components in Packetbeat can lead Denial of Service via Input Data Manipulation (CAPEC-153). An attacker with the ability to send specially crafted, malformed network packets to a monitored network interface can trigger out-of-bounds read operations, resulting in application crashes or resource exhaustion. This requires the attacker to be positioned on the same network segment as the Packetbeat deployment or to control traffic routed to monitored interfaces.

Improper Validation of Array Index (CWE-129) in the PostgreSQL protocol parser in Packetbeat can lead Denial of Service via Input Data Manipulation (CAPEC-153). An attacker can send a specially crafted packet causing a Go runtime panic that terminates the Packetbeat process. This vulnerability requires the pgsql protocol to be explicitly enabled and configured to monitor traffic on the targeted port.

Allocation of resources without limits or throttling (CWE-770) allows an unauthenticated remote attacker to cause excessive allocation (CAPEC-130) of memory and CPU via the integration of malicious IPv4 fragments, leading to a degradation in Packetbeat.

Out-of-bounds read (CWE-125) allows an unauthenticated remote attacker to perform a buffer overflow (CAPEC-100) via the NFS protocol dissector, leading to a denial-of-service (DoS) through a reliable process crash when handling truncated XDR-encoded RPC messages.

Improper Bounds Check (CWE-787) in Packetbeat can allow a remote unauthenticated attacker to exploit a Buffer Overflow (CAPEC-100) and reliably crash the application or cause significant resource exhaustion via a single crafted UDP packet with an invalid fragment sequence number.

Cross-site scripting (XSS) vulnerability in the CORS functionality in Elasticsearch before 1.4.0.Beta1 allows remote attackers to inject arbitrary web script or HTML via unspecified vectors.

Logstash 1.4.x before 1.4.5 and 1.5.x before 1.5.4 with Lumberjack output or the Logstash forwarder does not validate SSL/TLS certificates from the Logstash server, which might allow attackers to obtain sensitive information via a man-in-the-middle attack.

Directory traversal vulnerability in Elasticsearch before 1.6.1 allows remote attackers to read arbitrary files via unspecified vectors related to snapshot API calls.

Logstash 1.5.x before 1.5.3 and 1.4.x before 1.4.4 allows remote attackers to read communications between Logstash Forwarder agent and Logstash server.

All Elasticsearch versions from 1.0.0 to 1.5.2 are vulnerable to an attack that uses Elasticsearch to modify files read and executed by certain other applications. Upstream bug/commit unknown at the time of writing.

Mitigation: =========== Users should upgrade to 1.6.0. Alternately, ensure that other applications are not present on the system, or that Elasticsearch cannot write into areas where these applications would read.

External References:

https://www.elastic.co/community/security/

Directory traversal vulnerability in Elasticsearch before 1.4.5 and 1.5.x before 1.5.2, when a site plugin is enabled, allows remote attackers to read arbitrary files via unspecified vectors.