CVE-2023-49921 — elasticsearch
MEDIUMCVE-2023-49921 is a medium-severity (CVSS 5.2) 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 into Log File
Exploitation Status
No confirmed exploitation observed yet
- CISA’s own triage has not observed active exploitation or public proof-of-concept code for this CVE as of its last assessment.
Exploitation and automatability from CISA’s SSVC triage for CVE-2023-49921.
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
An issue was discovered by Elastic whereby Watcher search input logged the search query results on DEBUG log level. This could lead to raw contents of documents stored in Elasticsearch to be printed in logs. Elastic has released 8.11.2 and 7.17.16 that resolves this issue by removing this excessive logging. This issue only affects users that use Watcher and have a Watch defined that uses the search input and additionally have set the search input’s logger to DEBUG or finer, for example using: org.elasticsearch.xpack.watcher.input.search, org.elasticsearch.xpack.watcher.input, org.elasticsearch.xpack.watcher, or wider, since the loggers are hierarchical.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| ☕Maven | org.elasticsearch:elasticsearch | all versions | 7.17.16org.elasticsearch:elasticsearch:7.17.16 |
| ☕Maven | org.elasticsearch:elasticsearch | ≥ 8.0.0&&< 8.11.2 | 8.11.2org.elasticsearch:elasticsearch:8.11.2 |
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 7.17.16 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2023-49921 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.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2023-49921 in your dependencies?
Find it across Maven, including transitive dependencies.