CVE-2023-31417 — elasticsearch
MEDIUMCVE-2023-31417 is a medium-severity (CVSS 4.1) CWE-532 vulnerability in org.elasticsearch:elasticsearch. A fix is available for org.elasticsearch:elasticsearch — see the affected versions and patch details below.
Elasticsearch Insertion of sensitive information in audit logs
EPSS Exploitation Probability
EPSS (Exploit Prediction Scoring System) is a daily probability model maintained by FIRST.org. It estimates the likelihood a CVE will be exploited in production environments within the next 30 days, derived from real-world threat intelligence signals.
How urgent is this, really
CVE-2023-31417 plotted by exploitation likelihood (EPSS) against impact (CVSS). The shaded corner — EPSS 50%+ and CVSS 7.0+ — is where this CVE doesn't sit, though severity or exploitability alone can still warrant action.
Where this sits among everything scored
Of 377,636 CVEs with a current EPSS score, this one falls in the < 10% band (highlighted). Real counts from FIRST.org, not a sample — log-scaled since the landscape is heavily right-skewed.
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 generally filters out sensitive information and credentials before logging to the audit log. It was found that this filtering was not applied when requests to Elasticsearch use certain deprecated URIs for APIs. The impact of this flaw is that sensitive information such as passwords and tokens might be printed in cleartext in Elasticsearch audit logs. Note that audit logging is disabled by default and needs to be explicitly enabled and even when audit logging is enabled, request bodies that could contain sensitive information are not printed to the audit log unless explicitly configured.
The _xpack/security APIs have been deprecated in Elasticsearch 7.x and were entirely removed in 8.0.0 and later. The only way for a client to use them in Elasticsearch 8.0.0 and later is to provide the Accept: application/json; compatible-with=7 header. Elasticsearch official clients do not use these deprecated APIs.
The list of affected, deprecated APIs, is the following:
POST /_xpack/security/user/{username}
PUT /_xpack/security/user/{username}
PUT /_xpack/security/user/{username}/_password
POST /_xpack/security/user/{username}/_password
PUT /_xpack/security/user/_password
POST /_xpack/security/user/_password
POST /_xpack/security/oauth2/token
DELETE /_xpack/security/oauth2/token
POST /_xpack/security/saml/authenticate
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| ☕Maven | org.elasticsearch:elasticsearch | ≥ 7.0.0&&< 7.17.13 | 7.17.13org.elasticsearch:elasticsearch:7.17.13 |
| ☕Maven | org.elasticsearch:elasticsearch | ≥ 8.0.0&&< 8.9.2 | 8.9.2org.elasticsearch:elasticsearch:8.9.2 |
Detection & 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 7.17.13 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2023-31417 is resolved across your whole dependency graph.
Workarounds
If you can't upgrade right away: gate or disable the affected feature, validate untrusted input at the boundary, and avoid passing attacker-controlled data into the vulnerable path. O3's runtime protection blocks exploitation in production as an interim safeguard until the upgrade lands.
How O3 protects you
O3 Security's impact-aware SCA analyses which vulnerable code paths your application actually calls, so a match like CVE-2023-31417 can be triaged on real exposure rather than presence alone.
Tailored to CVE-2023-31417. Runtime protection reduces exposure until a permanent patch is applied and verified — it complements patching, it doesn't replace it.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2023-31417 in your dependencies?
O3 Security finds CVE-2023-31417 across Maven dependencies, including transitive ones, and its impact-aware SCA ranks findings by whether your code actually calls the vulnerable path.