CVE-2026-72686: Elastic Elasticsearch · Uncontrolled Recursion
Affects Elastic ElasticsearchSource CVE Database V5
Not known to be exploited · CVSS 6.5 Medium.
Data as of 10 Nov 2026, 23:24 UTC
- EPSS
- 0.5% chance of exploitation in 30 days – higher than 47% 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:HExploitation evidence
Disclosed: evidence found.
CVE published 13 Aug 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 10 Nov 2026.
What to do
Affected software
| Product | Affected | Fixed in |
|---|---|---|
| ElasticElasticsearch | Affected
| Fixed in– |
Mavenorg.elasticsearch/elasticsearchpkg:maven/org.elasticsearch/elasticsearchOther threats | Affected
| Fixed in– |
Check your own hosts for these packages with threat-finder (opens in a new tab), our free open-source scanner.
AI-suggested
Until a patch is available, restrict access to authenticated users and monitor for unusual request patterns that might exploit this vulnerability.
Description
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.