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NVD / CVE Program· CNA elastic

CVE-2021-37938: It was discovered that on Windows operating systems specifically, Kibana was not validating a user supplied path, which would load .pbf file

Noroxi assessment

Priority: Monitor (action score 17/100)

  • The sources we track (CISA KEV, Exploit-DB, Metasploit, Nuclei, GitHub) show no public exploit code or exploitation in the wild.
  • Probability of exploitation in the next 30 days: 0.72% (FIRST EPSS); higher than 53.7% of all records.
  • Anyone who can reach it over the internet can trigger it. A low-privileged account is enough. No user action is required. No special conditions are required; it is repeatable.
  • According to the record, no fixed version is available yet.

Low priority for now. Update when a fix is released; follow the vendor's advisory.

Generated automatically from the record's data: CVSS (NVD and CNA), CISA KEV and SSVC, FIRST EPSS, exploit sources, fixed versions. How we calculate it

Primary sources: NVD · CVE.org · FIRST EPSS

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.

MediumCVSS 4.3 · v3.1—No exploit No fix recorded
Published
Nov 18, 2021
Updated
Jun 17, 2026
EPSS
0.7% · 53th percentile

Report tools

JSON

Action score

17

Monitor

Low priority for now.

CVSS
17 / 40 · 4.3 / 10
CISA KEV
0 / 30 · Not listed
EPSS
0 / 30 · 0.7%

Get told when this record changes

  • Not in KEV: no record of exploitation in the wild
  • No public exploit code on record
  • No fixed version yet

If any of these changes, we'll tell you in the daily email digest.

Follow CVE-2021-37938

When you'll hear from us

  • when it enters CISA KEV
  • when exploit code appears or is weaponized
  • when the record is updated (including a fixed version)
  • when EPSS rises 20 points in a week

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Noroxi analysis

What does it mean in your environment?

The assessment above is generated automatically from the record's data; it doesn't know your environment. Our team verifies on your systems whether this vulnerability is actually exploitable and which mitigation is enough.

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Affected systems

Is your version affected?

Pick the product and type the version you run. It's compared with this record's version ranges in your browser; the version isn't sent anywhere.

VendorProduct
elastickibana

Affected versions

NVD version ranges (for catalog products). Add the product to your stack with a version and matching uses these.

  • elastic kibana7.9.0 and later · before 7.15.2

Versions reported by the vendor

Affected version ranges reported by the assigning authority (elastic). Independent of NVD's CPE analysis and usually ahead of it.

  • Elastic Kibana

    • All versions from 7.9.0 through 7.15.1affected

Same product

elastic: all records

Other highest-scoring records for the same primary product.

  • CVE-2019-7609Kibana versions before 5.6.15 and 6.6.1 contain an arbitrary code execution flaw in the Timelion visualizer.KEV
    99Now
  • CVE-2018-17246Kibana versions before 6.4.3 and 5.6.13 contain an arbitrary file inclusion flaw in the Console plugin.
    64This week
  • CVE-2025-25014Kibana arbitrary code execution via prototype pollution
    46Plan

Published before and after this one in the same product

  • ← EarlierCVE-2021-22139May 13, 2021 · Kibana versions before 7.12.1 contain a denial of service vulnerability was found in the webhook actions due to a lack of timeout or a limit
    26Monitor
  • ← EarlierCVE-2020-10743Jun 2, 2021 · It was discovered that OpenShift Container Platform's (OCP) distribution of Kibana could open in an iframe, which made it possible to interc
    17Monitor
  • Later →CVE-2021-37939Nov 18, 2021 · It was discovered that Kibana’s JIRA connector & IBM Resilient connector could be used to return HTTP response data on internal hosts, which
    10Monitor

Remediation

Which version to upgrade to

Fix versions compiled from the vendor, package registries and Microsoft. Verify the vendor's note before upgrading.

No fix version is recorded for this entry. Check the references for vendor advisories.

Exploit status

No known public exploit

No public exploit has been observed yet. That doesn't mean you're safe, only that the bar is a little higher.

Research context

For pentesters and researchers: attack profile, score disagreement, timeline, patch commits, credits, variant and chain candidates, bug bounty scope. All derived from existing data; no exploit code.

Timeline

From publication to today: proof of concept, Metasploit module, CISA KEV and fix record. Dates are as reported by the sources.

No dated events beyond publication.

EPSS, last 120 days

FIRST EPSS daily score; only changes of 0.01 or more are recorded (step chart).

Patch and commit links

Commit, PR and diff links among the references. A starting point for patch-diffing and variant hunting; fixes, not exploits.

No commit or PR link among the references.

Credits

All researchers

Finders, reporters and analysts named in the CNA record. Click a name for that researcher’s other records.

No credits in the CNA record.

Variant candidates

Same product, same weakness class, within 18 months. If the patch missed the root cause, the sibling bug is here.

No nightly-computed relations.

Chain candidates

An authentication bypass and a privilege-requiring bug in the same product, published close together: combined they may become an unauthenticated path.

—

Bug bounty scope

The product’s vendor appears in a public program. Matched by name; verify the scope text in the program.

Technical details

Attack conditions

  • Anyone who can reach it over the internet can trigger it.
  • A low-privileged account is enough.
  • No user action is required.
  • No special conditions are required; it is repeatable.

If successful

Confidentiality
low · data can be read
Integrity
none
Availability
none
Attack vector
Network
Attack complexity
Low
Privileges required
Low
User interaction
None
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality impact
Low
Integrity impact
None
Availability impact
None

Weakness class (CWE)

CWE-269 · Improper Privilege Management

CVSS vector

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:N/A:N

nvd-primary

Root cause

To simplify setup, a service account is granted broad, cluster-wide permissions. The principle of least privilege is skipped during installation.

The bug in code

The whole CWE-269 class

A representative example of this vulnerability class. Not the vendor's source code; it shows the faulty pattern and its fix.

Vulnerable

yaml
kind: ClusterRolerules:  - apiGroups: ["*"]    resources: ["*"]    verbs: ["*"]

Fixed

yaml
kind: Rolemetadata:  namespace: lodos-systemrules:  - apiGroups: ["apps"]    resources: ["deployments"]    verbs: ["get", "list", "update"]

Attack context

MITRE CAPEC attack patterns and ATT&CK techniques for this weakness class (CWE). A starting point for detection rules and threat hunting.

Change log

No changes recorded on tracked fields yet. Score, KEV, exploit maturity and fix status changes appear here.

References

Vendor advisories and official records. Exploit/PoC links are deliberately left out.

All records