CVE-2026-49095: Improper Input Validation in Kibana Fleet Leading to Privilege Escalation

Severity: medium (CVSS 6.5 v3.1)
Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
EPSS: 0.3% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
Public exploit or detection template: none known
Published: 2026-05-28 · updated 2026-07-21
Weakness: CWE-20

Description

Improper Input Validation (CWE-20) in the Kibana Fleet agent policy management feature can lead to privilege escalation. An authenticated user with Fleet management privileges can manipulate agent policy configuration by injecting values into a configuration override mechanism that is not adequately validated. An attacker can cause Elastic Agents to be issued API keys with elevated Elasticsearch privileges, potentially granting unauthorized read and write access to sensitive Elasticsearch security indices beyond what is intended for the Fleet management role.

Affected products

Kibana: from 8.0.0 before 8.19.16; from 9.0.0 before 9.3.5; from 9.4.0 before 9.4.2 — fixed in 8.19.16, 9.3.5, 9.4.2

How to fix

Upgrade to a fixed version: Kibana 8.19.16, 9.3.5, 9.4.2. Check the vendor advisory for mitigations.

References

https://discuss.elastic.co/t/kibana-fleet-8-19-16-9-3-5-and-9-4-2-security-update-esa-2026-38/386559

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