CVE-2023-31417 | Elasticsearch Insertion of sensitive information in audit logs

Elasticsearch generally filters out sensitive information and credentials before logging to the audit log. It was found that this filtering was not applied when requests to Elasticsearch use certain deprecated URIs for APIs. The impact of this flaw is that sensitive information such as passwords and tokens might be printed in cleartext in Elasticsearch audit logs. Note that audit logging is disabled by default and needs to be explicitly enabled and even when audit logging is enabled, request bodies that could contain sensitive information are not printed to the audit log unless explicitly configured.

Published: 2023-10-26 Last update: 2026-06-17 Assigner: [email protected] Source: [email protected]
NVD Status：Modified，CVE State: published
View at NVD, CVE.org, EUVD

CVE-2023-31417 is rated Low Risk (21.2/100): CVSS Medium severity, with low exploitation likelihood (EPSS 0.23%). Monitor for updates and reassess as exploit intelligence or EPSS changes.

Risk is dynamic; we continuously reassess and refresh what is shown on this page as upstream context changes.

Exploit prediction scoring system (EPSS) score for CVE-2023-31417

EPSS lead: Daily EPSS estimates relative likelihood of exploitation; percentile ranks this CVE among scored vulnerabilities (higher = more severe relative rank).

# Date Old EPSS score New EPSS score Delta (New - Old)
1 2026-06-15 0.05% 0.23% +0.18%
2 2025-10-15 0.04% 0.05% +0.01%
3 2025-04-15 — 0.04% —

Full EPSS history (9 records total)

Common vulnerability scoring system (CVSS) metrics for CVE-2023-31417

CVSS metrics for this CVE.

Base score Version Severity Vector Exploitability Impact Score source
4.1 3.1 MEDIUM
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:H/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N Click to expand
Attack vector (AV:L)
They already need access on the box, or another person has to do something wrong; it’s not a remote drive-by.
Attack complexity (AC:H)
Even with access, the exploit needs extra luck, timing, or a fussy environment to actually work.
Privileges required (PR:H)
They need powerful rights—admin, root, or similar—before this pays off.
User interaction (UI:N)
Nobody has to click “OK” or open a trap file; it can work without a victim helping.
Scope (S:U)
Damage stays in the same “trust bubble” as the broken component—no big spill into unrelated systems.
Confidentiality (C:H)
Serious risk that confidential data gets exposed in a big way.
Integrity (I:N)
Data isn’t meaningfully altered or forged.
Availability (A:N)
Service keeps running; no real outage angle.
 0.5 3.6 [email protected]
4.4 3.1 MEDIUM
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:H/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N Click to expand
Attack vector (AV:L)
They already need access on the box, or another person has to do something wrong; it’s not a remote drive-by.
Attack complexity (AC:L)
Once they can reach the bug, pulling it off is straightforward—no weird race conditions or rare setup.
Privileges required (PR:H)
They need powerful rights—admin, root, or similar—before this pays off.
User interaction (UI:N)
Nobody has to click “OK” or open a trap file; it can work without a victim helping.
Scope (S:U)
Damage stays in the same “trust bubble” as the broken component—no big spill into unrelated systems.
Confidentiality (C:H)
Serious risk that confidential data gets exposed in a big way.
Integrity (I:N)
Data isn’t meaningfully altered or forged.
Availability (A:N)
Service keeps running; no real outage angle.
 0.8 3.6 [email protected]

Weakness enumeration for CVE-2023-31417

GitHub Security Advisory for CVE-2023-31417

GHSA-99pc-69q9-jxf2 · Severity: medium · Ecosystem: maven — Elasticsearch allows insertion of sensitive information into log files when using deprecated URIs

OS Trackers for CVE-2023-31417

vendor priority summary link
redhat medium — https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2023-31417
ubuntu medium CVE-2023-31417 medium priority: Ubuntu including 1 source packages (elasticsearch), 12 status rows across 12 suites (bionic, focal, jammy, lunar, mantic, noble, oracular, plucky, questing, trusty, upstream, xenial): DNE 8, ignored 2, needs-triage 2. https://ubuntu.com/security/CVE-2023-31417

Affected software / configurations for CVE-2023-31417

Vendor Product Version Raw CPE
elastic elasticsearch >= 7.0.0, <= 7.17.12 cpe:2.3:a:elastic:elasticsearch:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
elastic elasticsearch >= 8.0.0, <= 8.9.1 cpe:2.3:a:elastic:elasticsearch:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*

References for CVE-2023-31417

cvelogic Threat Intelligence