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Mallory
Medium

Denial of Service in Splunk Archiver coldToFrozen.sh

IdentifiersCVE-2026-20240CWE-20· Improper Input Validation

CVE-2026-20240 is an improper input validation vulnerability in the Splunk Archiver app affecting Splunk Enterprise versions below 10.2.2, 10.0.5, 9.4.11, and 9.3.12, and Splunk Cloud Platform versions below 10.4.2603.1, 10.3.2512.9, 10.2.2510.11, 10.1.2507.21, 10.0.2503.13, and 9.3.2411.129. The flaw is in the coldToFrozen.sh script used by the splunk_archiver application. The script accepts arbitrary file path input and renames paths without validating that operations are limited to intended safe directories. A low-privileged authenticated user who does not have the admin or power Splunk roles can abuse this behavior to rename critical Splunk directories, breaking normal platform operation and rendering the instance non-functional.

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ANALYST BRIEF

Impact, mitigation & remediation

What it means. What to do now. Patch path, mitigations, and the assume-compromise checklist.

Impact

What an attacker gets, and what they’ve been doing with it.

Successful exploitation causes a denial-of-service condition. By renaming critical Splunk directories, an attacker can disrupt database mappings and core platform functionality, leaving the affected Splunk Enterprise or Splunk Cloud instance inoperable until the damaged directory state is corrected. The available information indicates service disruption rather than code execution or privilege escalation.

Mitigation

If you can’t patch tonight, do this now.

If immediate patching is not possible, disable the Splunk Archiver application as a temporary workaround. Additionally, restrict access to the vulnerable functionality to only trusted roles and review whether low-privileged users can invoke workflows that reach coldToFrozen.sh.

Remediation

Patch, then assume compromise.

Upgrade to a fixed release. For Splunk Enterprise, upgrade to 10.2.2, 10.0.5, 9.4.11, 9.3.12, or later. For Splunk Cloud Platform, upgrade to 10.4.2603.1, 10.3.2512.9, 10.2.2510.11, 10.1.2507.21, 10.0.2503.13, 9.3.2411.129, or later, as applicable to the supported branch.
PUBLIC EXPLOITS

Exploits

No public exploits tracked yet. Mallory keeps watching.

VALID 0 / 0 TOTALView more in app

No public exploit code observed for this vulnerability.

EXPOSURE SURFACE

Affected products & vendors

Products and vendors Mallory has correlated with this vulnerability. Open in Mallory to drill down to specific CPE configurations and version ranges.

VendorProductType
SplunkCloud Platformapplication
SplunkEnterpriseapplication
SplunkSplunkapplication
SplunkSplunk Cloud Platformapplication

Vendor-confirmed product mapping. Mallory continuously reconciles this list against your asset inventory.

What this page doesn’t show

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Exposure mapping

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Threat actor evidence

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Associated malware

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Detection signatures

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Vendor-by-vendor mapping

Cross-references every affected SKU, including bundled OEM variants.

Social activity2

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