An issue has been identified with how Elasticsearch handled incoming requests on the HTTP layer. An unauthenticated user could force an Elasticsearch node to exit with an OutOfMemory error by sending a moderate number of malformed HTTP requests. The issue was identified by Elastic Engineering and we have no indication that the issue is known or that it is being exploited in the wild.
The product does not properly control the allocation and maintenance of a limited resource.
| Name | Vendor | Start Version | End Version |
|---|---|---|---|
| Elasticsearch | Elastic | * | 7.17.12 (including) |
| Elasticsearch | Elastic | 8.0.0 (including) | 8.8.2 (including) |
| Elasticsearch | Ubuntu | bionic | * |
| Elasticsearch | Ubuntu | trusty | * |
| Elasticsearch | Ubuntu | xenial | * |
Mitigation of resource exhaustion attacks requires that the target system either:
The first of these solutions is an issue in itself though, since it may allow attackers to prevent the use of the system by a particular valid user. If the attacker impersonates the valid user, they may be able to prevent the user from accessing the server in question.
The second solution is simply difficult to effectively institute – and even when properly done, it does not provide a full solution. It simply makes the attack require more resources on the part of the attacker.