# CVE-2026-78601: Elastic Kibana missing authorization in Entity Store configuration

Source: https://junglewise.ai/threats/cve-2026-78601-elastic-kibana-missing-authorization-in-entity-store  
Publisher: Junglewise Threat Intelligence, https://junglewise.ai/threats  
Published: 2026-09-02. Updated: 2026-09-25  
License: CC BY 4.0 with a link back

CVE-2026-78601 · Severity: medium · CVSS 5.5 · Published 2026-09-02

Kibana, a data visualization and analytics platform used to search and analyze data in Elasticsearch, contains a missing authorization control in its Entity Store configuration feature. An authenticated administrator can exploit this to indirectly access Elasticsearch data they should not have permission to view, exposing sensitive information through the entity store interface. This affects deployments running Kibana 9.4.0–9.4.4 that have the Entity Store v2 feature enabled.

Technologies: [Elastic Kibana](https://junglewise.ai/threats/technologies/kibana). Vendors: [Elastic](https://junglewise.ai/threats/vendors/elastic).

## Quick answers

**Is CVE-2026-78601 exploited in the wild?** No. Junglewise Threat Intelligence has no report of CVE-2026-78601 being exploited in the wild.

**How severe is CVE-2026-78601?** Medium severity, with a CVSS score of 5.5, published 2 September 2026.

**Which products and versions are affected?** Elastic Kibana 9.4.0 through 9.4.4.

**Is there a fix for CVE-2026-78601?** A patch was published on 2026-09-02: Fixed in Kibana 9.4.5 Junglewise finds every place you run it, drafts the upgrade and applies it once you approve.

**How is CVE-2026-78601 attacked?** It is attacked over the network, in a web application.

**Am I affected by CVE-2026-78601?** Check whether you run Elastic Kibana at an affected version. Junglewise does that check for you around the clock: connect your code, cloud and domains, and it matches new vulnerabilities like this one against what you actually run and tells you when one reaches you.

## Technical details

The vulnerability is a missing authorization check (CWE-862) in a Kibana Entity Store configuration operation. An authenticated user with elevated Kibana privileges can misconfigure the Entity Store to cause a background task to read from Elasticsearch indices the user lacks authorization to access. The derived entity data from those restricted indices is then exposed through entity store output, resulting in information disclosure. Attack requires network access to Kibana, valid elevated credentials, and Entity Store v2 to be enabled with a Platinum+ license. The vulnerability is fixed in Kibana 9.4.5; versions prior to 9.4.0 and all 8.x releases are unaffected.

## Affected products

- Elastic Kibana 9.4.0 through 9.4.4

## Timeline

- 2026-09-02: disclosed
- 2026-09-02: patched: Fixed in Kibana 9.4.5

## References

- [https://discuss.elastic.co/t/kibana-9-4-5-security-update-esa-2026-147/390107](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/kibana-9-4-5-security-update-esa-2026-147/390107)

## Related threats

- [Elastic Kibana authorization bypass in connector logs](https://junglewise.ai/threats/cve-2026-115295-authorization-bypass-through-user-controlled-key-cwe-639-in)
- [Elastic Kibana path traversal in Fleet feature](https://junglewise.ai/threats/cve-2026-115294-improper-limitation-of-a-pathname-to-a-restricted-directory-cwe)
- [Elastic Kibana credential disclosure in Observability onboarding](https://junglewise.ai/threats/cve-2026-115293-insertion-of-sensitive-information-into-sent-data-cwe-201-in)
- [Elastic Kibana authorization bypass in Machine Learning](https://junglewise.ai/threats/cve-2026-115292-authorization-bypass-through-user-controlled-key-cwe-639-in)
- [Elastic Kibana incorrect authorization in Fleet settings](https://junglewise.ai/threats/cve-2026-102412-incorrect-authorization-cwe-863-in-kibana-can-lead-to-sensitive)