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Medium · 5.3 CVE-2026-18675 EUVD-2026-57421GHSA-7gh2-244h-962w

Kong Mesh: control plane denial of service via a malformed dataplane token with a non-string JWT kid

Published Aug 12, 2026 · Updated Aug 13, 2026 · Assigned by Kong

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.

Affected products

VendorProductAffectedFixed
Kong Kong Mesh < 2.7.29, 2.8.0 – < 2.9.19, 2.10.0 – < 2.11.18, 2.12.0 – < 2.12.14, 2.13.0 – < 2.13.10, 2.14.0 – < 2.14.2 2.7.29

References