CVE-2024-37280 in Elasticsearch
Summary
by MITRE • 06/13/2024
A flaw was discovered in Elasticsearch, affecting document ingestion when an index template contains a dynamic field mapping of “passthrough” type. Under certain circumstances, ingesting documents in this index would cause a StackOverflow exception to be thrown and ultimately lead to a Denial of Service. Note that passthrough fields is an experimental feature.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 10/03/2024
This vulnerability resides in the Elasticsearch document processing pipeline where the system encounters a critical stack overflow condition during document ingestion operations. The flaw specifically manifests when an index template contains a dynamic field mapping configured with the "passthrough" type, which is explicitly marked as an experimental feature within the Elasticsearch ecosystem. The vulnerability represents a classic denial of service scenario where legitimate document processing operations trigger an unhandled exception that crashes the affected nodes.
The technical root cause stems from how Elasticsearch handles dynamic field mappings during document ingestion, particularly when the passthrough type is involved in recursive or self-referential mapping scenarios. When documents are processed through an index template containing such mappings, the system's internal stack management fails to properly handle the recursive nature of the passthrough field resolution, leading to infinite recursion or excessive stack consumption. This behavior aligns with CWE-770, which addresses the allocation of resources without proper limits, and specifically demonstrates the dangerous intersection of dynamic mapping configuration with stack-based execution models.
The operational impact of this vulnerability extends beyond simple service disruption as it affects the core document ingestion capabilities of Elasticsearch clusters. Attackers could potentially craft malicious documents designed to trigger the specific conditions that lead to stack overflow, thereby causing cluster nodes to become unresponsive and preventing legitimate indexing operations from completing successfully. This scenario creates cascading effects that can compromise data ingestion workflows and potentially impact downstream applications that depend on real-time indexing capabilities. The experimental nature of the passthrough feature means that organizations may have deployed it without adequate testing for such edge cases, making this vulnerability particularly dangerous in production environments.
Organizations should immediately review their Elasticsearch configurations to identify any index templates utilizing the passthrough field type and consider disabling this experimental feature until a proper fix is available. The recommended mitigation strategy involves implementing strict monitoring of stack overflow exceptions and establishing automated alerting mechanisms for unusual resource consumption patterns. Additionally, organizations should implement rate limiting and input validation controls to prevent malicious document ingestion attempts that could trigger the vulnerability. From an ATT&CK framework perspective, this vulnerability maps to T1499.004, which covers network denial of service attacks, and T1566.001, which addresses phishing through spearphishing attachments, as the vulnerability could be exploited through crafted document submissions in targeted attack scenarios.