CVE-2026-94399
Description
A flaw was found in Elasticsearch. An authenticated remote attacker can exploit this vulnerability by submitting requests that trigger excessive resource allocation, leading to system exhaustion. This flaw can result in a Denial of Service (DoS), rendering the service unresponsive to legitimate users.
Statement
This vulnerability is rated as Moderate impact because an authenticated attacker with network reachability is required to induce service exhaustion, while data confidentiality and system integrity remain completely unaffected. Within Red Hat OpenShift AI, the affected Elasticsearch functionality is deployed internally within cluster services, which prevents unauthenticated remote exploitation. Furthermore, container images such as Red Hat Quay do not incorporate the vulnerable code paths and are not impacted.
Mitigation
Restrict network access to Elasticsearch and dependent feature server instances to trusted internal clients and authorized cluster workloads only.
Implement OpenShift NetworkPolicies or firewall rules to limit ingress traffic exclusively to verified application pods and trusted administrative networks. In addition, enforce role-based access control to restrict query execution to authorized users.
Caveat: Applying strict network filtering may disrupt legitimate application services that depend on Elasticsearch if required namespaces and endpoints are not explicitly permitted.
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 | 6.5 | N/A | 6.5 |
| 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 | High | N/A | High |
Vector
Red Hat: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
cve.org: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
Understanding the Weakness (CWE)
Availability
Technical Impact: DoS: Resource Consumption (CPU); DoS: Resource Consumption (Memory); DoS: Resource Consumption (Other)
When allocating resources without limits, an attacker could prevent other systems, applications, or processes from accessing the same type of resource. It can be easy for an attacker to consume many resources by rapidly making many requests or causing larger resources to be used than is needed.
Frequently Asked Questions
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