CVE-2026-78591 Elastic CVE debrief

Who should care

Defenders responsible for Kibana Fleet feature administration and security should assess potential exposure and impact. They should prioritize verifying exposure and assessing potential impact, focusing on Fleet administration interface access controls and user privileges, due to the vulnerability's potential for unauthorized resource deletion and privilege escalation.

Why it matters

Defenders should prioritize verifying exposure and assessing potential impact, focusing on Fleet administration interface access controls and user privileges, due to the vulnerability's potential for unauthorized resource deletion and privilege escalation.

• Unauthorized resource deletion
• Potential elevation of privileges
• Compromised Fleet administration interface access

Technical summary

The Kibana Fleet feature is vulnerable to Path Traversal, allowing a low-privileged user to cause a subsequent action taken by a higher-privileged user to act on an unintended target, resulting in the deletion of resources including accounts with elevated privileges. This vulnerability can lead to unauthorized resource deletion and potential elevation of privileges. Defenders should prioritize verifying exposure and assessing potential impact, focusing on Fleet administration interface access controls and user privileges.

Defensive priority

Defenders should prioritize verifying exposure and assessing potential impact, focusing on Fleet administration interface access controls and user privileges.

Recommended defensive actions

• Verify Fleet administration interface access controls and user privileges
• Assess potential impact of unauthorized resource deletion
• Review and update Kibana versions to 8.19.17, 9.3.6, or 9.4.3
• Confirm whether affected product deployments exist in managed environments and assign an owner for follow-up
• Review compensating controls for exposed systems while remediation is scheduled and verified
• Check relevant monitoring, detection, and logs for exposed assets that need extra review
• Track exceptions, retest remediated assets, and close the item only after evidence is documented

Evidence notes

The CVE record and NVD vulnerability detail page provide information on the vulnerability, including its description, CVSS score, and affected versions. The Kibana Fleet feature is vulnerable to Path Traversal, allowing a low-privileged user to cause a subsequent action taken by a higher-privileged user to act on an unintended target, resulting in the deletion of resources. There are no known exploits, but defenders should verify exposure and assess potential impact.

Sources and references

Methodology and review provenance

AI-assisted synthesis based on stored public vulnerability evidence. System validation, approval state, and publication status do not by themselves establish human review of this revision. PatchSiren helps prioritize defensive review and does not prove exposure or remediation on any system.