CVE intelligence and bounded remediation

CVE-2021-22148 — Elastic Enterprise Search security vulnerability

High CVSS 8.8

Elastic Enterprise Search App Search versions before 7.14.0 was vulnerable to an issue where API keys were not bound to the same engines as their creator. This could lead to a less privileged user gaining access to unauthorized engines.

Severity
High
CVSS
8.8 (3.1)
Published
2021-09-15
CISA KEV
Not currently listed
Ecosystem
software/application
Weaknesses
CWE-732

Affected products

  • elastic / enterprise_search

Matched remediation archetype

Privilege escalation and unsafe privilege management

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Check exposure

  • Map service accounts, operating-system identities, roles, capabilities, impersonation, set-user transitions, and administrative helper paths.
  • Determine whether untrusted users or lower-privilege processes can reach the affected transition or modify inputs it trusts.
  • Review file, socket, registry, device, job, container, and cloud-role permissions used before and after privilege changes.

Remediate safely

  • Apply the supported fix and redesign privileged operations as a minimal, authenticated, allowlisted interface.
  • Drop privileges before processing untrusted input, verify the drop succeeds, and remove unnecessary roles, capabilities, and write permissions.
  • Validate ownership and permissions at time of use and add explicit lower-to-higher privilege boundary tests.

Authoritative sources

Complete CVE record and remediation plan

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