CVE-2026-0531VulnerabilityPublished 13 Jan 2026

CVE-2026-0531: Elastic Kibana · Unthrottled Resource Allocation

Affects Elastic KibanaSource CVE Database V5

Not known to be exploited · CVSS 6.5 Medium.

Data as of 25 Oct 2026, 19:02 UTC

CVSS 3.1 base score

6.5Medium

How severe the flaw is on the 0–10 CVSS scale.

EPSS: 0.4% chance of exploitation in 30 days – higher than 41% of CVEsExploit Prediction Scoring System: the likelihood attackers will use this flaw soon.

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

Attack Vector: Network
Attack Complexity: Low
Privileges Required: Low
User Interaction: None
Scope: Unchanged
Confidentiality: None
Integrity: None
Availability: High

Bold values are the worst case: easiest to exploit or largest impact.

Attack Vector: Network: The vulnerable component is bound to the network stack and the set of possible attackers extends beyond the other options listed, up to and including the entire Internet. Such a vulnerability is often termed 'remotely exploitable' and can be thought of as an attack being exploitable at the protocol level one or more network hops away (e.g., across one or more routers).
Attack Complexity: Low: Specialized access conditions or extenuating circumstances do not exist. An attacker can expect repeatable success against the vulnerable component.
Privileges Required: Low: The attacker is authorized with (i.e., requires) privileges that provide basic user capabilities that could normally affect only settings and files owned by a user. Alternatively, an attacker with Low privileges may have the ability to cause an impact only to non-sensitive resources.
User Interaction: None: The vulnerable system can be exploited without any interaction from any user.
Scope: Unchanged: An exploited vulnerability can only affect resources managed by the same security authority. In this case, the vulnerable component and the impacted component are either the same, or both are managed by the same security authority.
Confidentiality: None: There is no loss of confidentiality within the impacted component.
Integrity: None: There is no loss of integrity within the impacted component.
Availability: High: There is total loss of availability, resulting in the attacker being able to fully deny access to resources in the impacted component; this loss is either sustained (while the attacker continues to deliver the attack) or persistent (the condition persists even after the attack has completed). Alternatively, the attacker has the ability to deny some availability, but the loss of availability presents a direct, serious consequence to the impacted component (e.g., the attacker cannot disrupt existing connections, but can prevent new connections; the attacker can repeatedly exploit a vulnerability that, in each instance of a successful attack, leaks a only small amount of memory, but after repeated exploitation causes a service to become completely unavailable).

Definitions: FIRST CVSS v3.1 specification.

Exploitation evidence

Disclosed: evidence found.
CVE published 13 Jan 2026
Detectable: no evidence on record.
No public nuclei template indexed
Weaponised: no evidence on record.
No public exploit code indexed in Metasploit or Exploit-DB
Exploited in the wildExploited: no evidence on record.
Not in CISA KEV and no source reports exploitation
Observed by OffSeq MirageSeen by Mirage: no evidence on record.
No attack traffic recorded by OffSeq Mirage sensors

A missing step is not evidence of safety. Sources: cve.org (opens in a new tab), the Metasploit, Exploit-DB and nuclei-templates index as of 2026-10-25.

Disclosed: The CVE record is public on cve.org. Its publication is t = 0.
Detectable: A public nuclei template can find exposed instances, for defenders and attackers alike.
Weaponised: Public exploit code exists in Metasploit or Exploit-DB, or CISA SSVC reports a public proof of concept.
Exploited in the wild: CISA KEV lists it, CISA SSVC rates exploitation active, or a source reports attacks.
Observed by OffSeq Mirage: OffSeq Mirage honeypot sensors recorded attack traffic for this CVE, or found exposed hosts without attack traffic.

Moments are spaced evenly, not to scale; a dashed line marks a gap of six months or more. Deltas count from t = 0. Sources that give only a date (CISA KEV, Exploit-DB, or a time of exactly 00:00Z) read “same day” rather than hours. Metasploit modules carry the flaw’s disclosure date, not their release date, and nuclei templates carry no date, so both appear above but not on the timeline.

What to do

Affected software

Product	Affected	Fixed in
ElasticKibana	Affected >=7.10.0 <=7.17.29 >=8.0.0 <=8.19.9 >=9.0.0 <=9.1.9 >=9.2.0 <=9.2.3	Fixed in–

AI-suggested

To mitigate CVE-2026-0531, organizations should first audit and restrict the assignment of viewer roles to trusted personnel only, minimizing the number of users with read access to agent policies. Implement strict access controls and monitor for unusual bulk retrieval requests that could indicate exploitation attempts. Employ resource monitoring and alerting on Kibana servers to detect abnormal memory consumption early. Where possible, isolate Kibana Fleet components in segmented network zones to limit potential attack impact. Apply vendor patches promptly once released, as Elastic is expected to address the lack of throttling and resource limits in future updates. Until patches are available, consider implementing rate limiting or request filtering at the network or proxy level to block suspicious bulk retrieval requests. Regularly review Kibana logs for signs of repeated or malformed requests targeting agent policies. Finally, maintain up-to-date backups and incident response plans to recover quickly from potential service outages.

Description

CVE-2026-0531 is a medium severity vulnerability in Elastic Kibana Fleet involving uncontrolled resource allocation. An attacker with low-level viewer privileges can send specially crafted bulk retrieval requests that cause redundant database operations, leading to excessive memory consumption. This results in a denial-of-service (DoS) condition by crashing the Kibana server and making it unavailable to all users. The vulnerability affects multiple Kibana versions from 7.10.0 through 9.2.0. No user interaction is required beyond possessing viewer-level access, and no known exploits are currently in the wild. The vulnerability impacts availability but does not compromise confidentiality or integrity.

Impact

For European organizations, this vulnerability can cause significant operational disruptions by crashing Kibana servers used for log analysis, security monitoring, and infrastructure observability. The denial-of-service impact affects availability, potentially delaying incident response and operational decision-making. Organizations in sectors such as finance, telecommunications, energy, and government that rely heavily on Elastic Stack for real-time monitoring are particularly vulnerable. The attack requires only viewer-level privileges, which may be more widely distributed internally, increasing the attack surface. Disruptions could lead to compliance issues under regulations like GDPR if monitoring and logging capabilities are impaired. Additionally, prolonged downtime could affect service level agreements and damage organizational reputation. While no data confidentiality or integrity loss is indicated, the loss of availability in critical monitoring tools can indirectly increase risk exposure to other threats.

CWE-770Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling (opens in a new tab)
Base weaknessLikelihood of exploit: HighCWE Top 25 (2025): #25
The product allocates a reusable resource or group of resources on behalf of an actor without imposing any intended restrictions on the size or number of resources that can be allocated.
Requirements
Clearly specify the minimum and maximum expectations for capabilities, and dictate which behaviors are acceptable when resource allocation reaches limits.
Architecture and Design
Limit the amount of resources that are accessible to unprivileged users. Set per-user limits for resources. Allow the system administrator to define these limits. Be careful to avoid CWE-410.
Architecture and Design
Design throttling mechanisms into the system architecture. The best protection is to limit the amount of resources that an unauthorized user can cause to be expended.
OWASP Cheat Sheets
Abuse Case (opens in a new tab)
OWASP ASVS 4.0.3
V8.1.4 (opens in a new tab)
V13.4.1 (opens in a new tab)
V11.1.4 (opens in a new tab)
Attack patterns
XML Ping of the Death (opens in a new tab)
Exponential Data Expansion (opens in a new tab)
Serialized Data Parameter Blowup (opens in a new tab)
Serialized Data with Nested Payloads (opens in a new tab)
Oversized Serialized Data Payloads (opens in a new tab)
From MITRE CWE, MITRE CAPEC and OWASP (Top 10, OpenCRE).

References

discuss.elastic.co/t/kibana-8-19-10-9-1-10-9-2-4-security-update-esa-2026-04/384522 (opens in a new tab)

Community reviews

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Exploitation evidence

What to do

Affected software

Description

AI analysisMachine-generated, updated 21 Jan 2026, 02:54 UTC

WeaknessesCWE-770

Technical details

References

Community reviews

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