Cyber Resilience

CVE-2025-68422

Access Control in Elastic Kibana 7.0.0 – 7.17.29

Published
18 December 2025
Modified
23 December 2025
Patch / advisory
CVSS Score v3.1 4.3
Click a component to see what it means
Raw vectorCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:N/A:N
EPSS Score 0.0020 10th percentile
Risk Priority 35 floored blend · peak EPSS

Summary

CVE-2025-68422 is a medium-severity Incorrect Authorization (CWE-863) vulnerability in Elastic Kibana. Its CVSS base score is 4.3 (Medium).

Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique Exploitation for Privilege Escalation (T1068); ranked at the 10th percentile by exploit likelihood (below the median); it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.

The strongest mitigations our analysis identified map to AC-3 (Access Enforcement) and AC-4 (Information Flow Enforcement) — see the control section below for these in your framework.

OWASP Top 10 for Web (2025)

EU & UK References

Vulnerability Data

Improper Authorization (CWE-285) in Kibana can lead to privilege escalation (CAPEC-233) by allowing an authenticated user to bypass intended permission restrictions via a crafted HTTP request. This allows an attacker who lacks the live queries - read permission to successfully…

more

retrieve the list of live queries.

CWE(s)

Related Threats

MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise TechniquesAI

T1068 Exploitation for Privilege Escalation Privilege Escalation
Adversaries may exploit software vulnerabilities in an attempt to elevate privileges.
Why these techniques?

CVE directly describes improper authorization leading to authenticated privilege escalation via crafted HTTP request, mapping to exploitation for privilege escalation.

Confidence: HIGH · MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise v19.0

CVEs Like This One

CVE-2025-68386Same product: Elastic Kibana
CVE-2026-49095Same product: Elastic Kibana
CVE-2025-25010Same product: Elastic Kibana
CVE-2026-33461Same product: Elastic Kibana
CVE-2026-33460Same product: Elastic Kibana
CVE-2024-37287Same product: Elastic Kibana
CVE-2025-25015Same product: Elastic Kibana
CVE-2024-43707Same product: Elastic Kibana
CVE-2026-49091Same product: Elastic Kibana
CVE-2026-26934Same product: Elastic Kibana

Affected Assets

elastic
kibana
9.2.0 · 7.0.0 — 7.17.29 · 8.0.0 — 8.19.7 · 9.0.0 — 9.1.7

Mitigating Controls

Control response

Prevent
Stop it (NIST 800-53)
  • AC-3 Access Enforcement
  • AC-6 Least Privilege
  • AC-4 Information Flow Enforcement
Detect
Catch it (NIST detect / respond)

Harden
Shrink the surface (DISA STIG)
  • 5 hardening rules · 3 OS baselines
Validate
Prove the fix (OWASP ASVS)

Mitigating Controls (NIST 800-53 r5) AI

prevent

Directly enforces authorization checks on all requests, blocking the crafted HTTP bypass that allows unauthorized live-query list retrieval.

prevent

Ensures the 'live queries - read' permission is granted only to intended users, limiting the impact of any enforcement failure.

prevent

Enforces information-flow rules that would deny the unauthorized data flow from the live-queries endpoint to an unprivileged user.

Mitigating Controls (NIST CSF 2.0) AI

Derived directly from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry via our AI-authored CWE→CSF cross-walk (authority under review) — links open the control.

PR.AA-05 mostly match
prevents

Defining, enforcing, and reviewing access authorizations and least privilege directly prevents incorrect authorization checks.

Mitigating Controls (ISO/IEC 27001:2022 Annex A) AI

Derived directly from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry via our AI-authored CWE→ISO cross-walk (authority under review) — links open the control.

prevents

Requiring consistency between access rights and classification plus formal approval steps ensures that the authorization logic correctly distinguishes between entities that should and should not be granted access.

prevents

Enforcing policy-driven approval and role-change reviews stops incorrect or stale authorization decisions from remaining in effect after job changes or terminations.

prevents

By tying access rights to identity, device, location and classification, the control reduces the likelihood that an authorization decision will be based on an incorrect or bypassed policy.

References