Cleartext Storage of Sensitive Information in an Environment Variable in Elastic Cloud on Kubernetes Leading to Information Disclosure

published 2026-08-13 2 mo ago modified 2026-09-04 2 mo ago also EUVD-2026-58281

cvss: 6.5; version 3.1, CNA
cisa kev: Not listed; not in CISA's catalog
epss: 0.4%; EPSS 0.4% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 37%
public exploits: 0; none known

Cleartext Storage of Sensitive Information in an Environment Variable (CWE-526) in Elastic Cloud on Kubernetes (ECK) can lead to information disclosure via Retrieve Embedded Sensitive Data (CAPEC-37). When ECK reconciles a Fleet Server resource that authenticates to Elasticsearch with a service account token, the token is written into the generated workload specification in cleartext rather than being referenced from the Kubernetes Secret that ECK maintains for the other credentials on the same path. Any principal able to read workload specifications in the affected namespace can therefore read a live Elasticsearch credential, even when Kubernetes RBAC does not grant that principal access to Secrets.

Patch / fix

fixed in 1

elastic elastic_cloud_on_kubernetes 3.5.0

CISA SSVC

Exploitation: none
Automatable: no
Technical impact: partial
Assessed: 2 mo ago (2026-08-13)

Exploit prediction

0.43% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 37% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-08).

CVSS scores

assigned by	version	score	vector
CNA	3.1	6.5	CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N

Affected products

Elastic Eck Operator

Classification

Weakness

CWE-526 Cleartext Storage of Sensitive Information in an Environment Variable

References

discuss.elastic.co /t/elastic-cloud-on-kubernetes-3-5-0-security-update-esa-2026-113/389493
vendor-advisory

Sources

CVE List CVE-2026-72648
NVD CVE-2026-72648

Fencer Vulns keeps one entry per vulnerability: the CVE id wins, then GHSA, and records that alias each other are merged, except that two CVEs always keep separate entries. The same data is available as JSON.

CPEs and fixed versions use Anchore's correction of NVD's data: Added CPE configurations because not yet analyzed by NVD.

Summary