highCVSS 7.5Vulnerability

CVE-2026-46487

### Summary GeoNetwork's Elasticsearch-backed search API is responsible for injecting access-control and visibility filters into every request before it reaches the underlying Elasticsearch index. Under certain request conditions, that filtering step does not run, allowing an unauthenticated user to retrieve indexed metadata records that should be restricted, including records limited to specific groups. ### Details The search proxy layer forwards client-supplied search requests to Elasticsearch after adding GeoNetwork's own access-control and filter clauses. A flaw in how that filter-injection step is triggered means it can be skipped under certain conditions, so the affected request reaches Elasticsearch without the intended access restrictions applied. ### Impact This is an authorization bypass leading to information disclosure (CWE-862: Missing Authorization). The skipped filter step is responsible for enforcing several layers of access control at once: group-based record visibility, draft record exclusion, record ownership checks, and portal-specific filtering. Any public-facing GeoNetwork 4.x instance (4.0.0-alpha.1 through 4.4.10) is affected. An unauthenticated attacker can retrieve the full contents of metadata records that should not be publicly visible.

Properties

ghsa_id
GHSA-582q-v28r-7cxr
severity
high
summary
GeoNetwork has ACL bypass on Elasticsearch search when request body omits query field
cvss_score
7.5
cve_id
CVE-2026-46487
cvss_vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N
is_ghsa_only
false
ghsa_published
2026-07-01T17:57:13Z
source_url
https://github.com/advisories/GHSA-582q-v28r-7cxr
ghsa_updated
2026-07-01T17:57:14Z

Related Entities (4)

VULNERABLE_TO (1)

[Software]maven/org.geonetwork-opensource:geonetwork

AFFECTS (1)

[Software]maven/org.geonetwork-opensource:geonetwork

HAS_WEAKNESS (1)

[Weakness]Missing Authorization

REPORTED_BY (1)

[Source]GitHub Advisory Database

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