Elasticsearch 8.11.x < 8.18.0 DoS (ESA-2026-111)

medium Nessus Plugin ID 338342

Synopsis

The remote host is missing a security update.

Description

The version of Elasticsearch installed on the remote host is 8.11.x prior to 8.18.0. It is, therefore, affected by a vulnerability as referenced in the ESA-2026-111 advisory.

- 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. (CVE-2026-72656)

Note that Nessus has not tested for this issue but has instead relied only on the application's self-reported version number.

Solution

Upgrade to Elasticsearch version 8.18.0 or later.

Plugin Details

Severity: Medium

ID: 338342

File Name: elasticsearch_ESA-2026-111.nasl

Version: 1.2

Type: Combined

Agent: unix

Family: Misc.

Published: 8/20/2026

Updated: 8/21/2026

Configuration: Enable thorough checks (optional)

Supported Sensors: Nessus Agent, Nessus

Risk Information

VPR

Risk Factor: Low

Score: 3

Percentile: 23.72

CVSS v2

Risk Factor: Medium

Base Score: 6.8

Temporal Score: 5

Vector: CVSS2#AV:N/AC:L/Au:S/C:N/I:N/A:C

CVSS Score Source: CVE-2026-72656

CVSS v3

Risk Factor: Medium

Base Score: 6.5

Temporal Score: 5.7

Vector: CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

Temporal Vector: CVSS:3.0/E:U/RL:O/RC:C

Vulnerability Information

CPE: cpe:/a:elastic:elasticsearch, cpe:/a:elasticsearch:elasticsearch

Required KB Items: installed_sw/Elasticsearch

Exploit Ease: No known exploits are available

Patch Publication Date: 8/13/2026

Vulnerability Publication Date: 8/13/2026

Reference Information

CVE: CVE-2026-72656

CWE: 789

Detections

Analytics