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
Probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, from FIRST.org EPSS.
How urgent is this, really
Where this sits among everything scored
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 |
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 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.
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.
The 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. Hence, the impact is set to Moderate.
Mitigation for this issue is either not available or the currently available options do not meet the Red Hat Product Security criteria comprising ease of use and deployment, applicability to widespread installation base, or stability. Please update the affected package as soon as possible.Source: Red Hat security advisory for CVE-2023-31417 (CC BY 4.0)
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2023-31417 in your dependencies?
Find it across Maven, including transitive dependencies.