What is CVE-2021-22149?

CVE-2021-22149 is a high-severity vulnerability in Elastic Enterprise Search, classified under Incorrect Permission Assignment for Critical Resource. CVSS score: 8.8/10. Published 2021-09-15.

How severe is CVE-2021-22149?

High severity. CVSS v3 base score is 8.8 out of 10.

Auth bypass in Elastic Enterprise Search

CVE-2021-22149

Elastic Enterprise Search App Search versions before 7.14.0 are vulnerable to an issue where API keys were missing authorization via an alternate route. Using this vulnerability, an authenticated attacker could utilize API keys belonging to higher privileged users.

Published 2021-09-15 · last modified 2026-06-17.

CVSS v3 metric

CVSS v3 base score 8.8 (High). Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H.

EPSS exploit prediction

EPSS: 0.010 (59.8th percentile), scored 2026-09-29.

Very low probability of exploitation in the next 30 days; routine patching cadence is appropriate. 60th percentile — 59.8% of CVEs in the catalogue have a lower EPSS than this one. How to read EPSS.

EPSS over last 30 days · oldest: 0.010 · newest: 0.010 · change: 0.000

Affected products

Elastic Enterprise Search — versions before 7.14.0
Elastic Enterprise Search

Weakness classification (CWE)

References

www.elastic.co/community/security/ (Vendor Advisory)
discuss.elastic.co/t/elastic-stack-7-14-0-security-update/280344 (Vendor Advisory)

Frequently asked questions

What is CVE-2021-22149?: CVE-2021-22149 is a high-severity vulnerability in Elastic Enterprise Search, classified under Incorrect Permission Assignment for Critical Resource. CVSS score: 8.8/10. Published 2021-09-15.
How severe is CVE-2021-22149?: High severity. CVSS v3 base score is 8.8 out of 10.