CVE-2021-37938: elastic kibana Improper Privilege Management
Vulnerability summary
CVE-2021-37938 is a medium (CVSS 4.3) Improper Privilege Management vulnerability in elastic kibana. EPSS estimates a 0.72% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 53% of scored vulnerabilities.
Timeline
- 18-11-2021PublishedVulnerability first disclosed.
- 04-08-2024Last modifiedVulnerability information updated.
Description
It was discovered that on Windows operating systems specifically, Kibana was not validating a user supplied path, which would load .pbf files. Because of this, a malicious user could arbitrarily traverse the Kibana host to load internal files ending in the .pbf extension. Thanks to Dominic Couture for finding this vulnerability.
CVSS metrics
2 scores · 1 source · 2 versionsEPSS trend
Probability
0.72%
Chance of exploitation in the next 30 days
Percentile
53%
Versus all other CVEs
30-day change
0.00 pp
From 0.72% on 19-09-2026
Known exploited
Compare KEV catalogsNot in any of the 3 tracked catalogs.
Public exploits
0 foundNo public exploits indexed.
Weaknesses
CWE · root cause- CWE-269Improper Privilege ManagementThe product does not properly assign, modify, track, or check privileges for an actor, creating an unintended sphere of control for that actor.
- CWE-22Improper Limitation of a Pathname to a Restricted Directory ('Path Traversal')The product uses external input to construct a pathname that is intended to identify a file or directory that is located underneath a restricted parent directory, but the product does not properly neutralize special elements within the pathname that can cause the pathname to resolve to a location that is outside of the restricted directory.
Affected systems
Elastic1 product
- kibanaAll versions from 7.9.0 through 7.15.1 | ≥ 7.9.0, < 7.15.2
1 vendor · 1 product
References
1 links- discuss.elastic.co/t/kibana-7-15-2-security-update/288923X Refsource MISCRelease NotesVendor Advisory