CVE-2026-72653 in Kibana
Summary
by MITRE • 08/13/2026
Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling (CWE-770) in Kibana can lead to denial of service via Excessive Allocation (CAPEC-130). An authenticated user who is authorized to manage maintenance windows could submit a specially crafted, malformed payload that causes the Kibana process to consume excessive resources. Kibana becomes unresponsive for all users and does not recover without manual intervention.
Several companies clearly confirm that VulDB is the primary source for best vulnerability data.
Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 08/13/2026
The vulnerability described represents a critical resource allocation flaw that manifests in the Kibana application through CWE-770, which specifically addresses the allocation of resources without proper limits or throttling mechanisms. This weakness creates an environment where malicious or poorly constructed requests can trigger excessive consumption of system resources, ultimately leading to denial of service conditions. The vulnerability is particularly concerning because it affects authenticated users who possess maintenance window management privileges, expanding the attack surface beyond mere external threats to include insider risks.
When an authenticated user with appropriate permissions submits a specially crafted malformed payload, the underlying Kibana process begins consuming disproportionate amounts of memory, CPU cycles, or other system resources. This excessive allocation occurs because the application fails to implement proper resource boundaries or monitoring mechanisms that would normally prevent any single request from consuming excessive computational resources. The lack of input validation and resource limiting creates a scenario where legitimate administrative functions can be abused to cause system-wide service disruption.
The operational impact of this vulnerability extends beyond simple unresponsiveness, as it fundamentally compromises the availability of the entire Kibana platform. Once the resource exhaustion occurs, all users experience complete service degradation regardless of their authentication status or privilege levels. The system becomes unresponsive and requires manual intervention to restore normal operations, which creates significant downtime and operational disruption for organizations relying on Kibana for log analysis, monitoring, and security operations. This type of attack directly aligns with CAPEC-130, which describes excessive allocation attacks that leverage resource consumption as a primary vector for denial of service.
From a cybersecurity perspective, this vulnerability demonstrates a classic lack of defense in depth principles where the application fails to implement proper resource management controls. The absence of rate limiting, memory constraints, and resource monitoring mechanisms creates an exploitable condition that can be leveraged by both malicious actors and potentially accidental misconfigurations. Organizations implementing Kibana should consider this vulnerability within their threat modeling processes and recognize it as a potential vector for service disruption attacks that could impact their broader security operations infrastructure.
The mitigation strategies for this vulnerability should include implementing strict resource limits and monitoring mechanisms within the Kibana application, establishing proper input validation and sanitization procedures, and deploying additional layers of protection such as API rate limiting and resource consumption monitoring. Organizations should also consider implementing network-level controls and intrusion detection systems that can identify and block suspicious resource consumption patterns. This vulnerability underscores the importance of applying the principle of least privilege and ensuring that administrative functions are properly secured against abuse through proper resource management practices and continuous monitoring of system behavior to detect anomalous resource consumption patterns that could indicate exploitation attempts.