Inefficient Regular Expression Complexity in Elasticsearch Leading to Denial of Service
Summary
| CVE | CVE-2026-102408 |
|---|---|
| State | PUBLISHED |
| Assigner | elastic |
| Source Priority | CVE Program / NVD first with legacy fallback |
| Published | 2026-10-06 20:17:12 UTC |
| Updated | 2026-10-06 20:17:12 UTC |
| Description | Inefficient Regular Expression Complexity (CWE-1333) in Elasticsearch can lead to denial of service via Regular Expression Exponential Blowup (CAPEC-492). The ES|QL CHUNK function's recursive chunking strategy accepts a list of user-supplied regular expressions used as text-splitting separators, without validating their computational complexity or bounding their execution time. An authenticated user with read access to any text-based index can submit a specially crafted regular expression that triggers catastrophic backtracking, consuming excessive CPU on Elasticsearch worker threads and degrading query throughput for other tenants on the affected node. The cluster does not crash as a result of this issue. |
Risk And Classification
Primary CVSS: v3.1 4.3 MEDIUM from [email protected]
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L
Problem Types: CWE-1333 | CWE-1333 CWE-1333 Inefficient Regular Expression Complexity
| Version | Source | Type | Score | Severity | Vector |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3.1 | [email protected] | Secondary | 4.3 | MEDIUM | CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L |
| 3.1 | CNA | CVSS | 4.3 | MEDIUM | CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L |
CVSS v3.1 Breakdown
Attack Vector
NetworkAttack Complexity
LowPrivileges Required
LowUser Interaction
NoneScope
UnchangedConfidentiality
NoneIntegrity
NoneAvailability
LowCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L
Vendor Declared Affected Products
| Source | Vendor | Product | Version | Platforms |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| CNA | Elastic | Elasticsearch | affected 8.19.0 8.19.21 semver | Not specified |
| CNA | Elastic | Elasticsearch | affected 9.1.0 9.3.8 semver | Not specified |
| CNA | Elastic | Elasticsearch | affected 9.4.0 9.4.7 semver | Not specified |
| CNA | Elastic | Elasticsearch | affected 9.5.0 9.5.4 semver | Not specified |
References
| Reference | Source | Link | Tags |
|---|---|---|---|
| discuss.elastic.co/t/elasticsearch-8-19-22-9-4-8-and-9-5-5-security-update-esa-2... | [email protected] | discuss.elastic.co | |
| CVE Program record | CVE.ORG | www.cve.org | canonical |
| NVD vulnerability detail | NVD | nvd.nist.gov | canonical, analysis |
No vendor comments have been submitted for this CVE.
There are currently no legacy QID mappings associated with this CVE.