CVE-2023-49921

An issue was discovered by Elastic whereby Watcher search input logged the search query results on DEBUG log level. This could lead to raw contents of documents stored in Elasticsearch to be printed in logs. Elastic has released 8.11.2 and 7.17.16 that resolves this issue by removing this excessive logging. This issue only affects users that use Watcher and have a Watch defined that uses the search input and additionally have set the search input’s logger to DEBUG or finer, for example using: org.elasticsearch.xpack.watcher.input.search, org.elasticsearch.xpack.watcher.input, org.elasticsearch.xpack.watcher, or wider, since the loggers are hierarchical.

Published: 2024-07-26 Last update: 2026-06-17 Assigner: [email protected] Source: [email protected]

Conclusion & alert: CVE-2023-49921 is rated Low Risk (33.3/100): CVSS Medium severity, with low exploitation likelihood (EPSS 0.46%). Mandatory action: 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-2023-49921

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 0.70% 0.46% -0.24%
2 2025-12-28 0.56% 0.70% +0.14%
3 2025-12-27 0.56%

Full EPSS history (17 records total)

Common vulnerability scoring system (CVSS) metrics for CVE-2023-49921

CVSS metrics for this CVE.

Base score Version Severity Vector Exploitability Impact Score source
5.2 3.1 MEDIUM
CVSS:3.1/AV:A/AC:L/PR:L/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N Click to expand
Attack vector (AV:A)
Attacker has to be nearby on the network—same office, same link, that vibe—not the whole wide internet.
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:L)
A normal user session is enough; they don’t have to be admin.
User interaction (UI:R)
A real person has to do something—click, install, enable—otherwise it doesn’t land.
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.
1.5 3.6 [email protected]
6.5 3.1 MEDIUM
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N Click to expand
Attack vector (AV:N)
Could be attacked over the internet or any normal routed network—not just someone sitting at the machine.
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:L)
A normal user session is enough; they don’t have to be admin.
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.
2.8 3.6 [email protected]

Weakness enumeration for CVE-2023-49921

GitHub Security Advisory for CVE-2023-49921

GHSA-2hjr-vmf3-xwvp · Severity: medium · Ecosystem: maven — Elasticsearch Insertion of Sensitive Information into Log File

OS Trackers for CVE-2023-49921

vendor priority summary link
redhat medium https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2023-49921
ubuntu medium CVE-2023-49921 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-2023-49921

Affected software / configurations for CVE-2023-49921

Vendor Product Version Raw CPE
elastic elasticsearch >= 7.0.0, < 7.17.16 cpe:2.3:a:elastic:elasticsearch:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
elastic elasticsearch >= 8.0.0, < 8.11.2 cpe:2.3:a:elastic:elasticsearch:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*

References for CVE-2023-49921

cvelogic Threat Intelligence