CVE-2026-4498
Published: 08 April 2026
Summary
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 Exploit Public-Facing Application (T1190); ranked at the 19.3th percentile by exploit likelihood (below the median); it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.
The strongest mitigations our analysis identified are NIST 800-53 AC-3 (Access Enforcement) and AC-6 (Least Privilege).
Threat & Defense at a Glance
Threat & Defense Details
Mitigating Controls (NIST 800-53 r5)AI
AC-6 enforces least privilege, directly countering CWE-250 by ensuring Kibana’s Fleet plugin debug route handlers do not execute with unnecessary privileges that bypass Elasticsearch RBAC.
AC-3 mandates enforcement of access control policies, preventing authenticated users from reading Elasticsearch index data beyond their RBAC scope via privilege abuse in debug handlers.
SI-2 requires timely remediation of flaws, such as applying Elastic's patches for affected Kibana versions to eliminate the unnecessary privileges vulnerability.
MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise TechniquesAI
Why these techniques?
Vulnerability in Kibana web app debug handlers enables exploitation of public-facing application for unauthorized access; directly facilitates collection of data from databases (Elasticsearch indices) via RBAC bypass.
NVD Description
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).
Deeper analysisAI
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.
Details
- CWE(s)