CVE-2026-72636
MEDIUMDescription
Uncontrolled Recursion (CWE-674) in the Elasticsearch wildcard matching helper can lead to a denial of service via Excessive Allocation (CAPEC-130). The matcher used to resolve wildcard patterns against names is implemented recursively and had no bound on recursion depth or on the total number of match operations performed. A search request containing a wildcard pattern with a large number of wildcard groups, evaluated against a sufficiently long name, exhausts the thread stack. Elasticsearch treats a stack overflow as an unrecoverable condition and shuts the node down, so the request terminates the affected node rather than failing gracefully.
How to fix
No published remediation has been found for this vulnerability's affected products yet.
Mitigation guidance may be in the linked vendor advisories in the References section below.
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CVSS v3 Vector
Exploitability
Impact
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
Exploit Intelligence
Low risk: more likely to be exploited than 22% of all known CVEs.
References
Related Vulnerabilities
Other CWE-674 vulnerabilities, ordered by exploit likelihood. View all
| CVE | Severity | CVSS | EPSS | Exploited | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CVE-2021-45105 | Medium | 5.9 | 100% | - | Fix |
| CVE-2024-25111 | High | 8.6 | 65% | - | Fix |
| CVE-2023-50269 | High | 8.6 | 58% | - | Fix |
| CVE-2021-42697 | High | 7.5 | 36% | - | Fix |
| CVE-2018-0739 | Medium | 6.5 | 19% | - | Fix |
| CVE-2007-1285 | High | 7.5 | 18% | - | Fix |
Common questions
How do I fix CVE-2026-72636?
No published fix for CVE-2026-72636 has been found yet. Check the linked vendor advisories for guidance as it becomes available.
Is CVE-2026-72636 being actively exploited?
Not that we know of. CVE-2026-72636 is not in the CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog. Its EPSS score of 0.29% is the estimated probability that it will be exploited in the next 30 days. That is higher than 22% of all scored CVEs.
How severe is CVE-2026-72636?
CVE-2026-72636 has a CVSS v3 base score of 6.5, rated medium. CVSS rates the technical impact if the vulnerability is exploited, not how likely that is, so weigh it alongside the exploit-prediction score when you decide what to patch first.
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This product uses NVD data but is not endorsed or certified by the NVD. EPSS scores courtesy of FIRST.org (https://www.first.org/epss). Source: CISA KEV Catalog. Data as of 2026-08-28.