CVE-2025-37736 is an authorization bypass vulnerability classified under CWE-863 found in Elastic Cloud Enterprise (ECE) versions 3.8.0 and 4.0.0. The flaw arises because the built-in readonly user account can invoke several sensitive APIs that should be inaccessible to it. These APIs include those managing service accounts (creation, deletion, patching), user accounts (creation, deletion, patching), and authentication keys (creation, deletion, and mass deletion). This improper authorization allows an attacker with readonly privileges to escalate their privileges by manipulating service accounts and user credentials, potentially gaining administrative control over the ECE environment. The vulnerability is remotely exploitable over the network without requiring user interaction, and only limited privileges (readonly user) are needed, which may be assigned in some environments for monitoring or auditing purposes. The impact spans confidentiality (unauthorized access to sensitive account data), integrity (modification or deletion of accounts and keys), and availability (disruption through deletion of critical accounts or keys). The CVSS v3.1 base score of 8.8 reflects these factors: network attack vector, low attack complexity, privileges required but minimal, no user interaction, and high impact on confidentiality, integrity, and availability. No public exploits have been reported yet, but the vulnerability is critical for cloud deployments relying on ECE for orchestration and management of Elastic clusters.

For European organizations, this vulnerability could lead to severe operational disruptions and data breaches. Elastic Cloud Enterprise is widely used for managing Elastic Stack deployments, which underpin logging, monitoring, and search capabilities critical to many enterprises and public sector entities. Unauthorized privilege escalation could allow attackers to manipulate user and service accounts, potentially gaining full control over Elastic infrastructure. This could result in data exfiltration, tampering with logs (impacting forensic investigations), and denial of service by deleting or disabling accounts and keys. Organizations in sectors such as finance, telecommunications, government, and critical infrastructure are particularly at risk due to their reliance on Elastic technologies for real-time data analytics and security monitoring. The breach of confidentiality and integrity could also lead to regulatory non-compliance under GDPR, with significant legal and financial consequences.

1. Immediately audit readonly user permissions and restrict or disable this account if not strictly necessary. 2. Implement strict role-based access control (RBAC) to ensure that readonly users cannot access sensitive APIs. 3. Monitor API usage logs for unusual activity, especially calls to service account and user management endpoints. 4. Apply any patches or updates released by Elastic addressing CVE-2025-37736 as soon as they become available. 5. Use network segmentation and firewall rules to limit access to ECE management interfaces to trusted administrators only. 6. Employ multi-factor authentication (MFA) for all administrative and privileged accounts to reduce risk from compromised credentials. 7. Regularly review and rotate API keys and service account credentials to minimize exposure. 8. Conduct penetration testing and vulnerability assessments focused on authorization controls within ECE environments.