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Information ExposureWeakness · CWE-200

CVE-2025-12147

MEDIUM · 6.0 CVSS v4.0 Published 2025-10-29
Mitigation only
No fix yet — a mitigation exists. There is no fixed release. A documented workaround reduces exposure in the meantime.
See remediation →
66/100
Remediation priority · Elevated
Remotely reachable Zero-click

Official description Straight from the sourceThe vendor's or NVD's own wording, published unedited. Authoritative, but often terse — it says what broke, rarely what to do.

NVD · unedited
In Search Guard FLX versions 3.1.1 and earlier, Field-Level Security (FLS) rules are improperly enforced on object-valued fields. When an FLS exclusion rule (e.g., ~field) is applied to a field which contains an object as its value, the object is correctly removed from the _source returned by search operations. However, the object members (i.e., child attributes) remain accessible to search queries. This exposure allows adversaries to infer or reconstruct the original contents of the excluded object. Workaround - If you cannot upgrade immediately and FLS exclusion rules are used for object valued attributes (like ~object), add an additional exclusion rule for the members of the object (like ~object.*).

Technical summary Written by usOur analysis, written from the advisory, the CVSS vector and the affected-version data. It adds context the advisory leaves out, and never invents facts that are not in the source.

dbcve analysis · high confidence

Search Guard FLX FLS exclusion rules (e.g., ~field) applied to object-valued fields only remove the parent object from _source but fail to restrict access to child attributes, allowing attackers to query and reconstruct excluded object contents.

MitigationUpgrade to a patched version of Search Guard FLX. As a workaround, add exclusion rules for object member fields (e.g., ~object.*) for any object-valued fields already protected by FLS exclusions.

Verify against the referenced sources before acting — the references below are authoritative for this CVE, this summary is not.

CVSS breakdown How the score is builtThe industry scoring standard. It rates how the flaw is reached, what it takes to exploit, and what an attacker gains — the score is derived from those, not the other way round.

From the vector
Attack vector
Network
Complexity
Low
Privileges
Low
Authentication
X
User interaction
None
Scope
X

CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:P/PR:L/UI:N/VC:H/VI:N/VA:N/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N/E:X/CR:X/IR:X/AR:X/MAV:X/MAC:X/MAT:X/MPR:X/MUI:X/MVC:X/MVI:X/MVA:X/MSC:X/MSI:X/MSA:X/S:X/AU:X/R:X/V:X/RE:X/U:X

Am I affected? How to checkSteps we derive from the advisory and the affected-version data, so you can decide whether this CVE reaches your setup. They are a guide, not a scan — your own configuration is the authority.

dbcve checks

Work through these to decide whether this CVE applies to you.

  1. Confirm Search Guard FLX installation
    Locate Search Guard FLX plugin or configuration files in the Elasticsearch/plugins or configuration directories, or check the installed plugins list via the Elasticsearch plugins API
    Affected if Search Guard FLX is installed and managing field-level security
  2. Identify FLS exclusion rules
    Review the Search Guard FLX configuration (typically in sg_config.yml or related configuration files) for FLS settings that use the tilde (~) prefix syntax for exclusions, such as ~fieldname
    Affected if FLS exclusion rules using ~field syntax are defined in the configuration
  3. Determine if exclusions target object-valued fields
    Compare the excluded field names against the Elasticsearch index mappings to identify if any excluded fields are of type 'object' or contain nested object structures
    Affected if FLS exclusions apply to fields defined as object type in the index mappings
  4. Verify child field access control
    Attempt to query child fields of an excluded object field (e.g., ~object.field) to see if access is denied, or review the configuration to confirm explicit exclusion rules exist for all child paths (e.g., ~object.*)
    Affected if Child attributes of excluded object fields remain accessible despite parent object exclusion from _source

The environment is affected if Search Guard FLX is in use with FLS exclusion rules (~field syntax) applied to object-valued fields without corresponding exclusions for the child field paths.

Generated from the published advisory. Verify against your own configuration.

Check your environment

Paste your version and any relevant configuration and it will be compared against the affected criteria above. Do not include secrets or credentials.

AI-assisted, checked against the advisory. Informational, not a guarantee.

Remediation Closing itWhat it takes to close this. Where a vendor fix exists we point at it; where none exists we say so plainly, and can build one. Effort estimates are scoped from the advisory, not from your codebase.

dbcve · scoped
Mitigation available No clean upgrade yet — mitigate in the meantime
Mitigation

Upgrade to a patched version of Search Guard FLX. As a workaround, add exclusion rules for object member fields (e.g., ~object.*) for any object-valued fields already protected by FLS exclusions.

Recommended fix High confidence
  1. 1. Identify all FLS exclusion rules that are applied to object-valued fields (rules like ~object)
  2. 2. For each object-valued field exclusion, add an additional exclusion rule targeting all child members using the wildcard pattern (e.g., ~object.*)
  3. 3. Test the configuration by performing search operations on the affected fields to confirm child attributes are no longer accessible
  4. 4. Verify that the parent object remains correctly excluded from _source results
  5. 5. Apply the updated FLS policy to all relevant roles and user groups

Generated from the published advisory — verify against the referenced sources before acting.

Have this fixed Scoped from the published advisory
  • Consultation4.0 h
  • Implementation6.0 h
  • Testing3.0 h
  • Review / QA2.0 h
15.0 hours of engineering $2,690
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References Go to the primary sourcePrimary sources — vendor advisories, patches and trackers. Where our summary and a reference disagree, the reference wins.

Primary sources

Practitioner notes

Contributed

Peer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-2025-12147 in production — separate from our analysis above.

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What this is

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What belongs here
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  • Version or environment caveats, and links to real fixes
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