CVE-2026-18675
Kong Mesh: control plane denial of service via a malformed dataplane token with a non-string JWT kid
- State
- Published
- Severity
- 5.3 Medium
- Published
- Aug 12, 2026
- Updated
- Aug 13, 2026
- Reserved
- Aug 3, 2026
Description
The dataplane token validator in kuma-cp performs an unchecked Go type assertion on the JWT kid header. A token whose kid is a JSON number decodes as a float64 and triggers a runtime panic before any signature, claims, or authorization check runs.
The panic terminates the entire kuma-cp process, HTTP API, the health and readiness endpoints, and xDS. Unauthenticated access to the dataplane gRPC server can trigger the crash with a malformed token
A single request is a transient interruption; sustaining an outage requires repeated requests.
Scores
| CVSS | Score | Vector | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| 4.0 | 5.3 Medium | CVSS:4.0/AV:A/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:N/VC:N/VI:N/VA:L/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N | Kong |
Weaknesses
Affected Products
| Product | Versions |
|---|---|
Kong MeshKong Inc. |
|
References
- Upstream advisory GHSA-5mxq-7xq4-3vx8vendor-advisory
- kumahq/kuma#17465 (master)patch
- kumahq/kuma#17468 (release-2.14 backport)patch
- kumahq/kuma#17467 (release-2.13 backport)patch
- kumahq/kuma#17471 (release-2.12 backport)patch
- kumahq/kuma#17469 (release-2.11 backport)patch
- kumahq/kuma#17470 (release-2.9 backport)patch
- kumahq/kuma#17472 (release-2.7 backport)patch
- Kong Product Security Advisoriesrelease-notes
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