CVE-2026-4498
Elastic Kibana 8.0.0 – 8.19.14
Raw vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:N/A:NSummary
CVE-2026-4498 is a high-severity Execution with Unnecessary Privileges (CWE-250) vulnerability in Elastic Kibana. Its CVSS base score is 7.7 (High).
Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique Exploitation for Privilege Escalation (T1068); ranked at the 22th 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-6 (Least Privilege) — see the control section below for these in your framework.
Deeper analysis AI-assisted summary
Synthesised by an AI model from the NVD description and linked references — a reading aid, not an authoritative source.
CVE-2026-4498 is an Execution with Unnecessary Privileges vulnerability (CWE-250) present in Kibana’s Fleet plugin debug route handlers. This flaw affects Kibana and allows reading Elasticsearch index data beyond the user's direct RBAC scope through privilege abuse (CAPEC-122). Published on 2026-04-08, it carries a CVSS v3.1 base score of 7.7 (AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:N/A:N), indicating high confidentiality impact with changed scope.
An authenticated Kibana user possessing Fleet sub-feature privileges—such as those for agents, agent policies, and settings management—can exploit this vulnerability. By abusing the debug route handlers, the attacker gains unauthorized read access to Elasticsearch index data outside their assigned RBAC permissions, potentially exposing sensitive information across the network with low complexity and no user interaction required.
Elastic's security advisory ESA-2026-21 details patches for affected Kibana versions, including 8.19.4, 9.2.8, and 9.3.3. Security practitioners should consult https://discuss.elastic.co/t/kibana-8-19-14-9-2-8-9-3-3-security-update-esa-2026-21/385811 for mitigation guidance, upgrade instructions, and additional remediation steps.
EU & UK References
- 🇪🇺 ENISA EUVD: EUVD-2026-20528
Vulnerability Data
Execution with Unnecessary Privileges (CWE-250) in Kibana’s Fleet plugin debug route handlers can lead reading index data beyond their direct Elasticsearch RBAC scope via Privilege Abuse (CAPEC-122). This requires an authenticated Kibana user with Fleet sub-feature privileges (such as agents,…
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agent policies, and settings management).
- CWE(s)
Related Threats
MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise Techniques
CVEs Like This One
Affected Assets
Mitigating Controls
Control response
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- 6 hardening rules · 6 OS baselines
V10.2.3V13.2.2
Mitigating Controls (NIST 800-53 r5) AI
Least privilege directly requires that only the minimum necessary authorizations are granted, structurally eliminating execution with unnecessary privileges.
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 directly enforces least privilege so largely eliminates CWE-250 at design time, yet the weakness can still arise from runtime escalation paths, third-party code, or misapplied role definitions outside this single control.
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.
Requiring explicit justification and time-limited grants discourages the routine allocation of unnecessary privileges that would otherwise allow execution with more rights than required.
Restricting privileged utilities to the fewest trusted users and requiring explicit authorization directly stops developers or operators from embedding or invoking code that runs with unnecessary elevated rights.
Mandating separate non-privileged identities for routine work and restricting privileged accounts to administrative tasks reduces the chance that everyday operations run with unnecessary elevated rights.
The control explicitly calls for minimizing privileged identities and disabling unnecessary accounts, thereby reducing the number of processes that run with unnecessary privileges.
The requirement to restrict privileged access and apply segregation of duties limits the number of processes or accounts that must run with elevated rights, lowering the impact of unnecessary privilege assignments.
Forcing distinct roles for initiating versus executing changes reduces the chance that an individual will run with unnecessary privileges to perform both steps.
Hardening callouts derived
Configuration rules from DISA STIG baselines that bear on weaknesses of the type cited by this CVE. Each rule is shown with the relationship its mapping actually records, against the CWE it was authored against. Derived via CVE→CWE over `controls_xwalks` (authoritative rows only; rows rated `none` are excluded).
Windows 10 (1 rule)
- V-220712 Only accounts responsible for the administration of a system must have Administrator rights on the system. prevents CWE-250
Windows 11 (1 rule)
- V-253269 Only accounts responsible for the administration of a system must have Administrator rights on the system. prevents CWE-250
Windows Server 2016 (1 rule)
- V-225007 Only administrators responsible for the member server or standalone or nondomain-joined system must have Administrator rights on the system. prevents CWE-250
Windows Server 2019 (1 rule)
- V-205746 Windows Server 2019 must only allow Administrators responsible for the member server or standalone or nondomain-joined system to have Administrator rights on the system. prevents CWE-250
Windows Server 2022 (1 rule)
- V-254428 Windows Server 2022 must only allow administrators responsible for the member server or standalone or nondomain-joined system to have Administrator rights on the system. prevents CWE-250