CVE-2020-7020 — elasticsearch
LOWCVE-2020-7020 is a low-severity (CVSS 3.1) CWE-270 vulnerability in org.elasticsearch:elasticsearch. A fix is available for org.elasticsearch:elasticsearch — see the affected versions and patch details below.
Privilege Context Switching Error in Elasticsearch
EPSS Exploitation Probability
Probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, from FIRST.org EPSS.
How urgent is this, really
CVE-2020-7020 by exploitation likelihood (EPSS) against impact (CVSS). Outside the shaded patch-first corner.
Where this sits among everything scored
Of 395,249 CVEs with a current EPSS score, this one falls in the < 10% band (highlighted). Counts from FIRST.org, log-scaled.
Real-World Exposure
org.elasticsearch:elasticsearch☕org.elasticsearch:elasticsearchReal-time download stats are indexed for npm and PyPI packages. This vulnerability affects Maven packages — download data is not available via public APIs for these ecosystems.
Description
Elasticsearch versions before 6.8.13 and 7.9.2 contain a document disclosure flaw when Document or Field Level Security is used. Search queries do not properly preserve security permissions when executing certain complex queries. This could result in the search disclosing the existence of documents the attacker should not be able to view. This could result in an attacker gaining additional insight into potentially sensitive indices.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| ☕Maven | org.elasticsearch:elasticsearch | all versions | 6.8.13org.elasticsearch:elasticsearch:6.8.13 |
| ☕Maven | org.elasticsearch:elasticsearch | ≥ 7.0.0&&< 7.9.2 | 7.9.2org.elasticsearch:elasticsearch:7.9.2 |
Affected Products
elasticsearchelasticDetection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for org.elasticsearch:elasticsearch, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update org.elasticsearch:elasticsearch to 6.8.13 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2020-7020 is resolved across your whole dependency graph.
Workarounds
Close the privilege gap rather than the entry point: audit which accounts, roles and service identities can reach the affected operation, drop the component to the least privilege it actually needs, and review file and directory permissions created by earlier installs — a default left in place is what makes this reachable.
Fixing This On Your OS
If you run this on a Linux distribution, patch through your package manager against the distro's own security advisory below — it tracks the exact backported fix for your release, which can ship on a different timeline (and sometimes a different severity) than the upstream project.
| Product | Fixed in | Advisory |
|---|---|---|
| Red Hat Fuse 7.11 | elasticsearch | RHSA-2022:5532 |
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2020-7020 in your dependencies?
Find it across Maven, including transitive dependencies.