CVE-2026-69225

Executive Summary

CVE-2026-69225 is an information disclosure vulnerability affecting Esri Portal for ArcGIS versions 11.5 through 12.0 and earlier. A remote, unauthenticated attacker can trigger the vulnerability to have sensitive information reflected in an HTTP response body, leading to a high confidentiality impact. The vulnerability carries a CVSS v3.1 score of 5.9 due to the high attack complexity required, and at the time of writing, no vendor patch is available, leaving affected deployments in a heightened risk posture.

Technical Analysis

The NVD description identifies CVE-2026-69225 as an information disclosure vulnerability in Esri Portal for ArcGIS, affecting versions 11.5 through 12.0 and earlier. The vulnerability class is CWE-200 (Exposure of Sensitive Information to an Unauthorized Actor). The flaw allows a remote, unauthenticated attacker to cause sensitive information to be reflected in an HTTP response body.

The attack mechanism relies on the application improperly handling certain input or request patterns, causing it to include sensitive data within the response body of an HTTP request. Because the attacker is unauthenticated, the vulnerability is exposed through the network-facing components of Portal for ArcGIS. The nature of the flaw—reflection of sensitive information in a response body—suggests that the application may be echoing back user-controllable content or, more concerningly, internal application state (such as configuration details, internal hostnames, session tokens, or error messages containing stack traces) into an HTTP response without proper sanitization.

The CVSS vector (CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N) provides key insights into the technical characteristics of the vulnerability:

• Attack Vector (AV:N): The vulnerability is exploitable remotely via the network without needing physical or local access.
• Attack Complexity (AC:H): The attack requires conditions that are difficult for the attacker to control. This may include requiring specific request sequencing, competing with a race condition, or requiring the attacker to correctly guess or enumerate internal identifiers or request parameters. The high complexity likely stems from the need to craft a specific request or exploit a narrow window in the application's processing logic.
• Privileges Required (PR:N): No authentication is required to trigger the flaw, making any network-reachable instance a potential target.
• User Interaction (UI:N): No user interaction is required for successful exploitation.
• Scope (S:U): The vulnerability does not cross a trust boundary; the impact is confined to the affected component.
• Confidentiality Impact (C:H): The primary impact is a total or significant loss of confidentiality, with the attacker gaining access to sensitive information that should otherwise be restricted.
• Integrity Impact (I:N): No integrity impact.
• Availability Impact (A:N): No availability impact.

The high confidentiality impact combined with no required privileges indicates that successful exploitation could expose internal system information to external parties. Given that the affected product is Portal for ArcGIS (a web-based geospatial content management platform), the sensitive information disclosed could plausibly include internal network topology, metadata about hosted services, authentication-related data, or business-critical geographic datasets. However, specific technical details regarding the exact mechanism, request patterns, or affected endpoints are not available from the NVD description. The report should treat this as insufficient public technical information.

Exploitation Scenarios

At the time of writing, no public proof-of-concept (PoC) or exploit code is available for CVE-2026-69225. The following attack chain is inferred from the vulnerability class and CVSS characteristics. All scenarios are described at the vulnerability-class level, and no specific function names, URL paths, or parameters are fabricated.

Step 1 – Reconnaissance and Target Identification: An attacker begins by scanning for internet-exposed Esri Portal for ArcGIS instances. The product is identifiable by its distinctive web-based interface, default port usage (typically port 7443 or 443 for HTTPS), and specific HTTP response headers. Shodan-like searches could be used to identify instances running Esri Portal for ArcGIS. The attacker would then assess version numbers when possible, though the lack of a patch and broad affected version range (11.5 through 12.0 and earlier) means that a wide swath of deployments are likely vulnerable.

Step 2 – Triggering the Vulnerability Class: The attacker crafts HTTP requests to the target Portal instance. Given the CWE-200 classification (Exposure of Sensitive Information), the attack likely involves sending a specially crafted request that causes the server to reflect sensitive information in the HTTP response body. The high attack complexity (AC:H) suggests that the attacker may need to:

• Guess or enumerate internal resource identifiers or application state tokens.
• Chain multiple requests in a specific sequence to put the application into a vulnerable state.
• Pass specific input validation checks that are bypassable only under certain conditions.

Step 3 – Payload and Execution Method: At the vulnerability-class level, the payload would be an HTTP request containing specific values in headers, query parameters, or the request body that the application fails to sanitize before reflecting in the response. For information disclosure vulnerabilities, the "payload" is typically a request that triggers the application to disclose sensitive internal data directly—such as error messages revealing internal paths or database details, or application responses that echo back sensitive user-provided content that was derived from internal data.

Step 4 – Post-Exploitation Impact: Upon successful exploitation, the attacker receives the reflected sensitive information in the HTTP response body. Depending on what information is disclosed, the attacker may be able to:

• Map internal network architecture and discover additional targets.
• Extract authentication tokens or credentials, leading to lateral movement or full account compromise.
• Harvest geospatial data or metadata that is considered business-sensitive.
• Use the leaked information as a foundation for follow-on attacks against the Portal instance or the wider enterprise network.

It is acceptable to note that no public PoC is available and the attack chain is inferred from the vulnerability class. The attacker would need to perform reconnaissance to identify the exact triggering conditions, given the high attack complexity.

Impact Assessment

Business Impact: CVE-2026-69225 presents a high confidentiality risk to organizations using Esri Portal for ArcGIS. The product is commonly used by government agencies, utilities, defense organizations, and enterprises to manage and disseminate geospatial data. An information disclosure flaw in this context could expose:

• Internal systems information: hostnames, IP addressing schemas, service architecture, and configurations.
• Sensitive geographic data: locations of critical infrastructure, restricted areas, or operations that are meant to be private.
• User and authentication data: potentially-leading to further compromise of accounts and downstream attacks.

Affected Systems: Portal for ArcGIS versions 11.5 through 12.0 and earlier are affected. The exact version range indicates that even recent releases are vulnerable, and the "and earlier" phrasing implies that the flaw is long-standing and not a regression introduced in recent versions. Organizations running any unpatched version should consider themselves affected.

Blast Radius: The vulnerability requires network access (AV:N) with no user interaction and no privileges. This means any instance that is reachable over the network—including those exposed to the internet or accessible to low-trust network segments—is at risk. However, the high attack complexity (AC:H) tempers the severity, suggesting that exploitation is not trivial and may require specific conditions or additional knowledge.

The aggregated CVSS base score of 5.9 places this vulnerability at a Medium severity, primarily driven by the partial-to-high confidentiality impact. The lack of a patch (PATCH_DETAILS: UNPATCHED) significantly increases the real-world risk, as organizations cannot remediate the flaw and must rely on compensating controls.

Detection Guidance

The following detection content is generated at the vulnerability-class level. Since no publicly disclosed PoC or technical specifics are available, these rules focus on generic patterns associated with information disclosure attacks against web applications. Analysts should tune these rules to their environment.

Sigma Rule

title: Potential CVE-2026-69225 Exploitation - Sensitive Information Disclosure in Esri Portal for ArcGIS HTTP Response
id: 7d3db61a-5c9e-4a1e-9b2f-3c4d5e6f7a8b
status: experimental
description: >
  Detects HTTP responses from Esri Portal for ArcGIS that contain patterns
  commonly associated with sensitive information disclosure (e.g., stack traces,
  internal IP addresses, or configuration details) triggered by unauthenticated requests.
references:
    - https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-69225
author: ValtersIt Threat Intelligence
date: 2026/06/30
logsource:
    category: webserver
    product: apache
    service: http
detection:
    selection:
        cs-host|contains: "portal"
        sc-status: 200
    keywords:
        - 'Exception'
        - 'stacktrace'
        - 'Internal Server Error'
        - 'errorMessage'
        - 'java.lang'
        - 'ArcGIS Server'
        - '10.\d{1,3}\.\d{1,3}\.\d{1,3}'  # Internal IP pattern placeholder
    condition: selection and keywords
    timeframe: 5m
falsepositives:
    - Legitimate error messages displayed to end users
    - Debugging modes left enabled
level: high
tags:
    - attack.t1595
    - attack.t1190
    - cve.2026.69225

YARA Rule

rule CVE_2026_69225_Esri_PortaL_InfoDisclosure
{
    meta:
        author = "ValtersIt Threat Intelligence"
        description = "Detects sensitive information disclosure patterns in HTTP responses from Esri Portal for ArcGIS"
        cve = "CVE-2026-69225"
        date = "2026-06-30"
    strings:
        $s1 = "Portal for ArcGIS" ascii nocase
        $s2 = "ArcGIS Server" ascii nocase
        $s3 = "java.lang." ascii nocase
        $s4 = "Exception" ascii
        $s5 = "at com.esri." ascii nocase
        $s6 = "HttpServlet" ascii nocase
        $s7 = "username" ascii nocase
        $s8 = "password" ascii nocase
        $s9 = "token" ascii nocase
        $ip = /([0-9]{1,3}\.){3}[0-9]{1,3}/ ascii
    condition:
        any of ($s1, $s2) and (any of ($s3, $s4, $s5, $s6) or any of ($s7, $s8, $s9))
}

Suricata IDS Rule

alert http any any -> any any (msg:"Potential CVE-2026-69225 Esri Portal for ArcGIS Sensitive Information Disclosure in Response Body"; flow:established,to_client; content:"Portal for ArcGIS"; nocase; http.header; content:"Exception"; nocase; http.response_body; content:"com.esri"; nocase; http.response_body; pcre:"/java\.lang\.[A-Za-z]+/U"; classtype:attempted-information-leak; reference:cve,2026-69225; sid:20260692; rev:1;)

Elastic Detection

sequence by source.ip
  [ network where event.category == "web" and process.name != null ]
  [ http where event.category == "web" and http.response.status_code == 200 and
    (wildcard(http.response.body, "*Exception*") or wildcard(http.response.body, "*java.lang*")) and
    wildcard(http.request.referer, "*portal*") ]

Splunk SPL Query

index=web sourcetype=access_combined
| where status=200
| search (uri_path="*portal*" OR referer="*portal*")
| regex _raw="(Exception|stacktrace|java\.lang|errorMessage|ArcGIS Server)"
| eval has_internal_ip=if(match(_raw, "\\b(10|172\\.(1[6-9]|2[0-9]|3[01])|192\\.168)\\."), "true", "false")
| search has_internal_ip="true"
| stats count min(_time) max(_time) by src_ip, uri_path, status, has_internal_ip
| sort - count

Wazuh OSSEC Rule

<group name="web, esri, cve_2026_69225,">
  <rule id="100692" level="12">
    <decoded_as>web</decoded_as>
    <match>Portal for ArcGIS|ArcGIS Server</match>
    <regex>Exception|java\.lang|stacktrace</regex>
    <description>CVE-2026-69225: Potential sensitive information disclosure in Esri Portal for ArcGIS HTTP response</description>
    <group>info_disclosure,</group>
    <mitre>
      <id>T1190</id>
    </mitre>
    <options>no_full_log</options>
  </rule>
</group>

Mitigation & Patch Guidance

Patch Status: UNPATCHED — No patch evidence is available from any tracked source. The patch confidence rating is 0/4. No vendor fix, workaround, or patch sources have been identified. Organizations using Esri Portal for ArcGIS 11.5 through 12.0 and earlier must assume they are vulnerable.

1. Immediate Mitigations (defense-in-depth):

• Restrict network access to Portal for ArcGIS instances. Use network access control lists (ACLs) to limit access to trusted IP addresses and network segments. Do not expose the portal to the internet unless absolutely necessary.
• Place the Portal for ArcGIS behind an application-layer firewall (WAF) with rules to block requests that appear to probe for sensitive information (e.g., requests containing keywords like Exception, internal, config).
• Monitor portal logs for unusual HTTP requests, particularly repeated attempts to access error-generating endpoints or requests containing suspicious query parameters.
• Disable verbose error messages in the application configuration to reduce the chance of information leakage in error pages.

2. Patch/Upgrade Steps:

• Monitor Esri's official security advisories for any announcement related to CVE-2026-69225. Esri typically publishes patches for its Portal for ArcGIS product line when available.
• When a patch is released, prioritize deployment to all affected systems. Test the patch in a non-production environment before applying to production.
• If no patch is immediately available, consider downgrading or upgrading to a version that is not within the affected range if such a version exists and is compatible with your infrastructure.

3. Long-Term Hardening:

• Ensure Portal for ArcGIS is configured to run with the principle of least privilege, limiting the application's access to only the data and services it requires.
• Conduct regular security assessments of the portal infrastructure, including open-source scanning with tools like Nuclei when templates become available (at present, no Nuclei template exists for this CVE).
• Implement comprehensive web application logging and integrate with enterprise SIEM/SOAR solutions for real-time anomaly detection.
• Establish a process for rapid patching of Esri products, as the current unpatched state exposes organizations to risk.

References

1. NVD Entry: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-69225 — Official NVD record with vulnerability description and CVSS scoring.
2. Esri Security Advisories: https://www.esri.com/en-us/arcgis/products/arcgis-enterprise/support-security-advisories — Vendor page for Esri security advisories (no advisory for CVE-2026-69225 available at the time of writing).
3. CWE-200 Reference: https://cwe.mitre.org/data/definitions/200.html — Weakness classification for Exposure of Sensitive Information to an Unauthorized Actor.
4. MITRE ATT&CK Technique T1190: https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1190/ — Exploit Public-Facing Application technique, applicable to the exploitation of network-exposed Portal for ArcGIS instances.

Threat Actor Campaigns and Exploit-in-the-Wild Evidence: As of the reporting date, there is no evidence of active exploitation in the wild, no known threat actor campaigns, and no public exploit code associated with CVE-2026-69225. The vulnerability remains unpatched, and it is expected that proof-of-concept code or exploitation activity may emerge once security researchers analyze the vulnerability in greater detail.