Elastic Cloud Enterprise: Link following leads to information disclosure and data loss
Summary
Elastic Cloud Enterprise (ECE) contains a link following flaw (CWE-59) that allows a local attacker to access or destroy data of other deployments on the same host via a symlink attack. Exploitation requires high privileges, such as the ability to run code inside an Elasticsearch deployment container or prior access to the host. Internet-facing exposure is not required, but the risk is highest on shared multi-tenant ECE hosts.
Affected
- ECE 2.6.0 up to and including 3.8.5
- ECE 4.0.0 up to and including 4.2.0
Fixed in
- ECE 3.8.6
- ECE 4.2.1
- Later releases verified to contain the fix
Exact patch build: confirm in the vendor advisory or ECE release notes.
Workaround
Unknown. The vendor states there are no workarounds; upgrading is the remedy.
Exploitation
- No evidence of exploitation in the wild found.
- No public proof-of-concept found.
- CISA SSVC: Exploitation none, Automatable no, Technical impact total.
- EPSS 0.26 % (percentile 17).
Our recommendation
- Check whether ECE is in use and which version is running.
- Upgrade to ECE 3.8.6 or 4.2.1 (or later). On 4.2.1 deployments with Enterprise Search, also apply ESA-2026-222 (a separate related flaw).
- Review who has shell or container access on ECE hosts and restrict it to the smallest possible admin group until the upgrade is complete.
- Priority: medium for ECE operators; no action needed for organisations without ECE.
Public exploits
PoC-in-GitHub, Metasploit and Exploit-DB list nothing for this CVE.
Research sources
- Elastic ESA-2026-216 security update advisory discuss.elastic.co
- OffSeq Radar: CVE-2026-115709 radar.offseq.com
- VulDB entry 428433 vuldb.com
- Strix: CVE-2026-115709 www.strix.ai
- Elastic ESA-2026-222 advisory (related, separate CVE) discuss.elastic.co
- Elastic Cloud Enterprise release notes www.elastic.co
Researched and written up in English and German by an AI (Claude by Anthropic) based on NVD, CISA, EPSS and the sources listed. The vendor information is authoritative. Researched on 1 Nov 2026, 14:41.
Original description (NVD)
Improper Link Resolution Before File Access ('Link Following') (CWE-59) in Elastic Cloud Enterprise (ECE) can lead to unauthorized disclosure and loss of data belonging to other deployments on the same host via Symlink Attack (CAPEC-132).
Sources
The tracker combines official, freely usable data sources – updated continuously:
- NVD (NIST) – CVEs, rating (CVSS), affected products
- CISA KEV – vulnerabilities confirmed by CISA as actively exploited
- CISA Vulnrichment – CISA assessment (SSVC) in the official CVE record
- FIRST EPSS – probability of exploitation
- Microsoft MSRC – Patch Tuesday: vulnerabilities, severity, updates
- PoC-in-GitHub – public proof-of-concept repositories
- Metasploit (Rapid7) – modules of the Metasploit Framework
- Exploit-DB (OffSec) – archive of public exploits (links only)
- Patch days: official vendor pages (linked per vendor) (Vendor patch days)
This product uses data from the NVD API but is not endorsed or certified by the NVD. EPSS data © FIRST.org.
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