Uncontrolled Recursion in Elasticsearch Leading to Denial of Service (CVE-2026-72683) | HOL Guard CVE

Medium · CVSS 6.5CVE-2026-72683

Uncontrolled Recursion in Elasticsearch Leading to Denial of Service

Answer in brief

CVE-2026-72683 records a Medium severity (CVSS 6.5) vulnerability in Uncontrolled Recursion in Elasticsearch Leading to Denial of Service. The current sources do not mark it as known exploited. The current feed maps Elastic/Elasticsearch (generic). Check affected ranges and fixed versions before updating.

Analysis pending evidence review

HOL Guard separates source facts from reviewed analysis. See the methodology.

Published Aug 13, 2026Updated Sep 1, 2026Source checked Sep 28, 2026First seen by HOL Aug 13, 2026Material review Sep 1, 2026

Upstream Advisory

Key facts

Risk: Medium · CVSS 6.5
Exploitation: Not marked as known exploited
Affected software: 2 mapped packages or products
Fix availability: Not reported

Why this deserves its current priority

CVSS is 6.5. The current sources do not mark it as known exploited. Treat this as a source-backed prioritization signal, not a statement about your environment.

Analysis status

Analysis pending evidence review

Factual feed record only; HOL analysis is not approved for indexing. Read the methodology.

Affected scope and exposure questions

The current feed maps Elastic/Elasticsearch (generic). Check affected ranges and fixed versions before updating.

Affected products and reported versions
Product	Affected versions	Fixed versions
cpe:2.3:a:elastic:elasticsearch::::::::	Not reported	Not reported

Mapped affected packages and fixed versions
Package	Affected range	Fixed version
Elastic/Elasticsearchgeneric	5.0.0 \|\| 9.3.0 \|\| 9.4.0	Not reported

Recommended response

Check inventory. Check lockfiles and deployed manifests for Elastic/Elasticsearch.
Review the reported fix. Monitor this advisory for an available fix and review any installs of the affected package.

Evidence timeline and material changes

Published upstream
Aug 13, 2026
Evidence: source:cvelist:source_dates:source-dates:record
Source modified
Sep 1, 2026
Evidence: source:cvelist:source_dates:source-dates:record
First seen by HOL
Aug 13, 2026

Sources and claim methodology

Source referencediscuss.elastic.co

Upstream source description

A flaw in Elasticsearch allows an authenticated user with the privileges required to invoke the simulate pipeline API endpoint (https://www.elastic.co/docs/api/doc/elasticsearch/operation/operation-ingest-simulate) to submit a request that causes a self-referential data structure to be created. When a specific internal component later processes that structure, the operation recurses without bound and raises a fatal error that is not handled by the surrounding execution path, terminating the affected node process and resulting in a denial of service.

Quoted source text, attributed separately from HOL analysis.