CVE-2026-18675Hinoki check available

Control-plane crash via non-string JWT kid

Published Aug 12, 2026 · Updated Aug 12, 2026

Denial of service in Kong Mesh affected releases allows remote attackers on the mesh network to crash kuma-cp through the xDS gRPC server. The dataplane token validator asserts the untrusted JWT kid value as a Go string, so a JSON number decoded as float64 causes an uncaught runtime panic before validation. The server must be reachable from an untrusted mesh or cluster network; one request interrupts all control-plane endpoints until restart, while repeated requests sustain the outage.

CVSS severity5.3
Medium
EPSS probability0.38%
Next 30 days · Sep 16, 2026
Known exploitationUnconfirmed
Based on sourced intelligence
Hinoki checkAvailable
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Summary

What happened

Denial of service in Kong Mesh affected releases allows remote attackers on the mesh network to crash kuma-cp through the xDS gRPC server. The dataplane token validator asserts the untrusted JWT kid value as a Go string, so a JSON number decoded as float64 causes an uncaught runtime panic before validation. The server must be reachable from an untrusted mesh or cluster network; one request interrupts all control-plane endpoints until restart, while repeated requests sustain the outage.

The record

CVE
CVE-2026-18675
Published
Aug 12, 2026
Updated
Aug 12, 2026
Vendor
Kong Inc.
Product
Kong Mesh
Classifications
CWE-248, CWE-704, T1499.004
Attack vector
adjacent
Privileges
unauthenticated

Timeline

How it unfolded

  1. Aug 12, 2026CVE publishedPublication date reported by the CVE source.
  2. Aug 12, 2026Record updatedLatest update available in the CVE record.

Exploitability

Present is not the same as exploitable

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Is a vulnerable build present?

Compare these published version ranges with your installed build and any vendor patches.

  1. Affected versionversion=0 <2.7.29
  2. Affected versionversion=2.10.0 <2.11.18
  3. Affected versionversion=2.12.0 <2.12.14
  4. Affected versionversion=2.13.0 <2.13.10
  5. Affected versionversion=2.14.0 <2.14.2
  6. Affected versionversion=2.8.0 <2.9.19

What conditions does exploitation require?

Attack vectoradjacent
Required privilegesunauthenticated

What is affected?

Kong Inc. · Kong Meshversion=0 <2.7.29; version=2.10.0 <2.11.18; version=2.12.0 <2.12.14; version=2.13.0 <2.13.10; version=2.14.0 <2.14.2; version=2.8.0 <2.9.19

Published CVSS scores

5.3KongCVSS:4.0/AV:A/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:N/VC:N/VI:N/VA:L/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N

CVSS describes severity. EPSS estimates exploitation probability.

Attacks

What attackers are doing with it

Daily unique IPs observed by Shadowserver honeypots for known exploited vulnerabilities (KEVs). Missing observations do not establish an absence of attacks.

Daily unique IPsNo honeypot observations are available for this CVE in the selected window.

No observations available

Sep 10, 2026Sep 16, 2026
Latest reporting daySep 16, 2026
Latest daily unique IPsUnavailable
Prior 30-day averageUnavailable
SourceShadowserver honeypots (KEV)
Vectoradjacent
Privilegesunauthenticated
Known exploitationUnconfirmed
Public exploitUnconfirmed

Weakness, pattern, technique

CWE-248Uncaught Exception
CWE-704Incorrect Type Conversion or Cast
T1499.004Application or System Exploitation Flood

Public exploit references

No public exploit references are available in this record.

Labels summarize the accepted research assessment. They do not indicate a test against your environment.

Technologies

Your stack

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Your stack

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