Description

Uncaught Exception (CWE-248), resulting from Improper Input Validation (CWE-20), in Kibana can lead to denial of service via Input Data Manipulation (CAPEC-153). An authenticated user holding only low-privileged access can cause an internal error condition in Kibana by supplying specially crafted data. The resulting error is raised on an execution path so it propagates as an uncaught exception and terminates the Kibana process. Kibana is unavailable to all users until the service is restarted, and the condition can be triggered repeatedly.

Executive Summary

Technical Details

Mitigations

References

Additional Metadata

{
  "score": "6.5",
  "pubDate": "2026-08-13T20:17:26.317Z",
  "pubdate": "2026-08-13T20:17:26.317Z",
  "executiveSummary": "An Uncaught Exception (CWE-248) vulnerability stemming from Improper Input Validation (CWE-20) has been identified in Kibana. This security flaw allows an authenticated adversary leveraging low-privileged access to trigger an internal error condition by supplying specially crafted input data. The resultant failure propagates as an unhandled exception along the execution path, immediately terminating the Kibana Node.js process and inducing a sustained denial of service (DoS) state. Consequently, the application becomes entirely unavailable to all concurrent users until manual or automated service recovery procedures are executed to restart the daemon. Because the underlying flaw remains exploitable via repeated submissions of the malicious payload, malicious actors can perpetually disrupt service availability. The attack vector specifically relies on Input Data Manipulation (CAPEC-153) and necessitates low-privileged authentication, restricting remote unauthenticated exploitation but posing a significant risk to internal availability and operational integrity within multi-tenant or shared-access deployments.",
  "technicalDetails": "The vulnerability resides within the input processing pipeline of Kibana, specifically characterized by a failure in robust input validation (CWE-20) combined with deficient exception handling mechanisms (CWE-248). The root cause stems from the application accepting malformed or untrusted input parameters and failing to sanitize or safely catch anomalous states during parsing and processing. When an authenticated user with low-privileged access submits a specially crafted payload via Input Data Manipulation (CAPEC-153), the targeted component encounters an unexpected parsing or logical exception.\nRather than gracefully catching the error via try-catch blocks or defensive programming paradigms, the exception propagates unhandled up the call stack to the top-level event loop or process boundary. In asynchronous runtime environments typical of Node.js-based architectures, an uncaught exception forces the immediate termination of the process to prevent undefined state corruption, thereby inducing a denial of service. The attack flow requires the adversary to establish an authenticated session with low privileges, formulate the malicious input structure, and transmit the payload to the vulnerable endpoint responsible for processing the target data type. Upon receipt, the lack of rigorous boundary checking permits the execution to traverse an unprotected code path, triggering the fatal error condition. Because the service crash occurs deterministically upon every submission of the payload, the attacker can repeatedly trigger the exception to maintain a continuous denial of service condition without requiring sophisticated heap manipulation or arbitrary code execution capabilities."
}