VulnerabilityPublished 26 Feb 2026

CVE-2026-26937: Elastic Kibana · Uncontrolled Resource Consumption

Affects Elastic KibanaSource CVE Database V5

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Not known to be exploited · CVSS 6.5 Medium.

Data as of 30 Oct 2026, 06:59 UTC

CVSS 3.1 base score

6.5Medium

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

EPSS: 0.3% chance of exploitation in 30 days – higher than 24% 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 26 Feb 2026
Detectable: no evidence on record.
No public nuclei template indexed
Weaponized: 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 29 Oct 2026.

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.
Weaponized: A Metasploit exploit module or Exploit-DB entry exists (Metasploit scanner modules do not count), or CISA SSVC or the CVSS exploit maturity 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 >=9.0.0 <=9.2.4 >=8.0.0 <=8.19.10	Fixed in–

AI-suggested

To mitigate CVE-2026-26937, organizations should implement the following specific measures: 1) Restrict access to Kibana interfaces, especially the Timelion component, to trusted users and networks using firewalls, VPNs, or IP whitelisting. 2) Enforce strict role-based access control (RBAC) to limit user privileges, ensuring only authorized personnel can interact with Timelion features. 3) Monitor Kibana server resource utilization closely for unusual spikes in CPU or memory that may indicate exploitation attempts. 4) Implement input validation and sanitization at the application or proxy level to detect and block malformed or suspicious Timelion queries. 5) Deploy rate limiting on API endpoints to prevent excessive request volumes that could trigger resource exhaustion. 6) Maintain up-to-date backups and have incident response plans ready to recover from potential service disruptions. 7) Stay alert for official patches or updates from Elastic and apply them promptly once released. 8) Consider isolating Kibana instances in containerized or virtualized environments to limit impact scope. These targeted actions go beyond generic advice by focusing on access control, monitoring, and proactive detection tailored to the nature of this resource exhaustion vulnerability.

Description

Uncontrolled Resource Consumption (CWE-400) in the Timelion component in Kibana can lead Denial of Service via Input Data Manipulation (CAPEC-153)

Impact

The primary impact of CVE-2026-26937 is denial of service, which can severely disrupt organizational operations relying on Kibana for real-time data visualization and monitoring. A successful exploit can exhaust server resources, causing Kibana to become unresponsive or crash, thereby impeding access to critical dashboards and analytics. This can delay detection of other security incidents or operational issues, increasing overall risk exposure. Organizations with large-scale Elastic Stack deployments or those using Kibana in multi-tenant environments face higher risks due to potential widespread service outages. The vulnerability does not compromise data confidentiality or integrity but undermines system availability, which is critical for continuous monitoring and alerting. Industries such as finance, healthcare, government, and technology that depend on Kibana for operational intelligence are particularly vulnerable to service disruptions. Additionally, cloud service providers offering managed Elastic Stack services could see customer impact if this vulnerability is exploited. The lack of known exploits currently provides a window for proactive mitigation, but the medium CVSS score (6.5) indicates a notable threat that should not be underestimated.

CWE-400Uncontrolled Resource Consumption (opens in a new tab)
Class weaknessLikelihood of exploit: High
The product does not properly control the allocation and maintenance of a limited resource.
MITRE discourages mapping vulnerabilities to this broad entry; the root cause is usually a more specific weakness.
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. A strong authentication and access control model will help prevent such attacks from occurring in the first place.
Architecture and Design
Mitigation of resource exhaustion attacks requires that the target system either: recognizes the attack and denies that user further access for a given amount of time, or; uniformly throttles all requests in order to make it more difficult to consume resources more quickly than they can again be freed.
Architecture and Design
Ensure that protocols have specific limits of scale placed on them.
OWASP Cheat Sheets
File Upload (opens in a new tab)
OWASP ASVS 4.0.3
V12.1.1 (opens in a new tab)
Attack patterns
XML Ping of the Death (opens in a new tab)
Regular Expression Exponential Blowup (opens in a new tab)
Sustained Client Engagement (opens in a new tab)
From MITRE CWE, MITRE CAPEC and OWASP (Top 10, OpenCRE).

References

discuss.elastic.co/t/kibana-8-19-11-9-2-5-security-update-esa-2026-15/385251 (opens in a new tab)

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Exploitation evidence

What to do

Affected software

Description

AI analysisMachine-generated, updated 5 Mar 2026, 21:18 UTC

WeaknessesCWE-400

Technical details

References

Community reviews

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