CVE-2026-102408
Description
A flaw was found in Elasticsearch. An authenticated attacker with read access to an index can cause a Denial of Service (DoS) by submitting queries containing specially crafted regular expressions to the ES|QL CHUNK function. Because the component does not properly restrict regular expression complexity or limit processing time, evaluating the pattern triggers excessive CPU consumption, significantly degrading query performance on the affected node.
Statement
This vulnerability is rated as having Moderate impact because exploitation requires authenticated callers possessing index query permissions and causes performance degradation rather than process termination or data compromise. Within supported deployments utilizing affected Elasticsearch engines, processing malicious text-splitting expressions can exhaust node worker threads through computational backtracking. Although node services do not crash and data integrity remains unaffected, overall search throughput across multi-tenant clusters can be diminished.
Mitigation
Mitigation for this issue is either not available or the currently available options do not meet the Red Hat Product Security criteria comprising ease of use and deployment, applicability to widespread installation base, or stability.
Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) Score Details
Info alert:Important note
CVSS scores for open source components depend on vendor-specific factors (e.g. version or build chain). Therefore, Red Hat's score and impact rating can be different from NVD and other vendors. Red Hat remains the authoritative CVE Naming Authority (CNA) source for its products and services (see Red Hat classifications).
The following CVSS metrics and score provided are preliminary and subject to review.
CVSS v3 Score Breakdown
| Red Hat | NVD | cve.org | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Base Score | 4.3 | N/A | 4.3 |
| Attack Vector | Network | N/A | Network |
| Attack Complexity | Low | N/A | Low |
| Privileges Required | Low | N/A | Low |
| User Interaction | None | N/A | None |
| Scope | Unchanged | N/A | Unchanged |
| Confidentiality | None | N/A | None |
| Integrity Impact | None | N/A | None |
| Availability Impact | Low | N/A | Low |
Vector
Red Hat: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L
cve.org: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L
Understanding the Weakness (CWE)
Availability
Technical Impact: DoS: Resource Consumption (CPU)
Attackers can create crafted inputs that intentionally cause the regular expression to use excessive backtracking in a way that causes the CPU consumption to spike.
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