Security Bulletin: Vulnerability in Elasticsearch affects IBM watsonx Assistant Cartridge and IBM watsonx Orchestrate with watsonx Assistant Cartridge.

Vulnerability Details

CVEID:   CVE-2026-72639
DESCRIPTION:   Elasticsearch does not enforce an upper bound on a user-supplied count accepted by a search highlighting option, and the allocation derived from that count is not accounted against any circuit breaker. An authenticated user holding only read privileges on a single searchable index can submit one small search request that causes the node to reserve an excessively large internal data structure. The allocation occurs before the existing highlighting safety limits are evaluated, so memory exhaustion raises a fatal error that terminates the Elasticsearch node process. This results in a denial of service for the affected node and degrades cluster routing and health. The defect is not volumetric and does not depend on the size of the indexed data, so a single request is sufficient.
CWE:   CWE-789: Memory Allocation with Excessive Size Value
CVSS Source:   security@elastic.co
CVSS Base score:   6.5
CVSS Vector:   (CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H)

CVEID:   CVE-2026-72645
DESCRIPTION:   Memory Allocation with Excessive Size Value (CWE-789) in Elasticsearch can lead to denial of service via Excessive Allocation (CAPEC-130). An authenticated user holding only read privileges on a single index can submit one small, specially crafted search request that causes an excessively large memory allocation, exhausting the JVM heap and terminating the affected node.
CWE:   CWE-789: Memory Allocation with Excessive Size Value
CVSS Source:   security@elastic.co
CVSS Base score:   6.5
CVSS Vector:   (CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H)

CVEID:   CVE-2026-72647
DESCRIPTION:   Uncontrolled Recursion (CWE-674) in Elasticsearch can lead to denial of service via Serialized Data with Nested Payloads (CAPEC-230). An authenticated user holding only read privileges on a single index can submit one specially crafted search request whose deeply nested structure is processed without a depth limit, exhausting the thread stack and terminating the affected node.
CWE:   CWE-674: Uncontrolled Recursion
CVSS Source:   security@elastic.co
CVSS Base score:   6.5
CVSS Vector:   (CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H)

CVEID:   CVE-2026-72678
DESCRIPTION:   Elasticsearch does not validate a size value taken from a user-supplied input before that value is used to reserve memory for an internal data structure. An authenticated user holding only read privileges can submit a single small crafted request to a product API endpoint that causes the node to attempt an excessively large allocation. The resulting memory exhaustion raises a fatal error that terminates the Elasticsearch node process, causing a denial of service for the affected node and degrading cluster health. The defect is not volumetric, so a single request is sufficient regardless of the heap size configured on the target node.
CWE:   CWE-789: Memory Allocation with Excessive Size Value
CVSS Source:   security@elastic.co
CVSS Base score:   6.5
CVSS Vector:   (CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H)

CVEID:   CVE-2026-72679
DESCRIPTION:   Elasticsearch does not apply its configurable input length restriction to a user-supplied pattern accepted by an intervals query. Compiling a deeply nested pattern drives unbounded recursion that exhausts the thread stack and raises a fatal error, terminating the Elasticsearch node process and causing a denial of service for that node. An authenticated user holding only read-only privileges on a single searchable index can trigger the condition with one small search request.
CWE:   CWE-674: Uncontrolled Recursion
CVSS Source:   security@elastic.co
CVSS Base score:   6.5
CVSS Vector:   (CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H)

CVEID:   CVE-2026-72684
DESCRIPTION:   A flaw in Elasticsearch allows an authenticated user holding only read privileges to submit a small search request containing a crafted user-supplied input. Processing that input causes a specific internal component to allocate memory without any upper bound, and the allocation occurs outside the scope of the existing memory accounting controls that were intended to constrain it. The resulting out-of-memory condition is fatal and terminates the affected node process, causing a denial of service.
CWE:   CWE-770: Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling
CVSS Source:   security@elastic.co
CVSS Base score:   6.5
CVSS Vector:   (CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H)

CVEID:   CVE-2026-72685
DESCRIPTION:   A flaw in Elasticsearch allows a low-privileged authenticated user who can index documents to submit a single small document containing a crafted user-supplied input. Processing one such document occupies a worker thread from a bounded pool for a disproportionate amount of time, degrading the availability of indexing operations on the affected node.
CWE:   CWE-407: Inefficient Algorithmic Complexity
CVSS Source:   security@elastic.co
CVSS Base score:   4.3
CVSS Vector:   (CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L)

CVEID:   CVE-2026-72687
DESCRIPTION:   A flaw in Elasticsearch allows a low-privileged authenticated user to submit a single small request containing a forged opaque identifier. Elasticsearch decodes and deserializes the identifier before confirming that it was legitimately issued by the cluster, and a size value carried inside the identifier drives an allocation that is neither capped nor accounted for by the available memory-usage controls. The resulting out-of-memory condition is fatal and terminates the affected node process, resulting in a denial of service.
CWE:   CWE-789: Memory Allocation with Excessive Size Value
CVSS Source:   security@elastic.co
CVSS Base score:   6.5
CVSS Vector:   (CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H)