What happened
Incorrect Authorization (CWE-863) in Elasticsearch can lead to Privilege Escalation via a delegated administrative privilege whose scope is not fully enforced during authorization checks. Elasticsearch contains an incorrect authorization weakness in a configurable, non-default privilege that lets an administrator delegate limited role-management capability to another user, scoped to specific indices. The authorization check that enforces this scoping does not correctly account for a role-definition setting that can expand the matched index set. A user holding this delegated privilege with a broadly-scoped index pattern can exploit this inconsistency by updating their own assigned role to gain access to indices that should remain restricted, including internal security data. This can enable further escalation up to full administrative control of the cluster.
Affected versions
Elasticsearch: 8.16.0 through 8.19.21 (semver); 9.0.0 through 9.4.6 (semver); 9.5.0 through 9.5.3 (semver) Fixed: See vendor advisory.
Why it matters
Review the vendor advisory and exposure of the affected product to determine operational impact.
Detection & mitigation
- Apply vendor-provided updates or mitigations.
- Review affected product exposure and access logs.
Public PoC references
No public PoC reference has passed the current publication threshold.