Kong Kong Mesh vulnerabilities

CVE-2026-18674 High · 7.0 CWE-345 Aug 17, 2026

Kong Mesh multi-zone: the global control plane attributes KDS-synced resources by an unvalidated in-band zone identifier

On a Kong Mesh global control plane, resources received over the zone-to-global KDS sync are attributed using the in-band, sender-controlled ControlPlane.Identifier rather than the authenticated zone identity derived from the connection. Authenticated zones can have the global control plane store and re-distribute those resources as belonging to another zone. The result is a cross-zone isolation bypass: the holder of a single enrolled zone's credential can inject, attribute, and overwrite resources in another zone's namespace mesh-wide. The root cause lives in Kuma's open-source KDS sync code, which Kong Mesh's control plane is built on.

CVE-2026-18679 Medium · 5.8 CWE-295 Aug 12, 2026

Kong Mesh: kuma-dp connects to the control plane without verifying the TLS certificate when no CA is configured

When kuma-dp is started against an HTTPS control plane and the operator did not pass a CA certificate, the data plane connects with TLS peer verification disabled, and the dataplane authentication token is sent over that unverified connection. An on-path actor can intercept the dataplane authentication token and impersonate the control plane to the data plane, injecting a forged bootstrap configuration and taking over the proxy.

CVE-2026-18678 Medium · 5.5 CWE-295 Aug 12, 2026

Kong Mesh: kumactl connects to the control plane without verifying the TLS certificate when no CA is configured

When an operator adds an HTTPS control plane profile to kumactl without providing a CA certificate, kumactl disables TLS verification and sends API tokens over the unverified connection. An attacker on the network path between the operator and the control plane can intercept user or admin API tokens and then act against the control plane as that user.

CVE-2026-18677 Medium · 6.0 CWE-290 Aug 12, 2026

Kong Mesh: a dataplane token without a workload binding can claim any workload's SPIFFE identity

In Kong Mesh running in universal mode with a MeshIdentity whose SPIFFE ID path template derives from the dataplane's kuma.io/workload label, the XDS authenticator in kuma-cp validates that label only when the dataplane token is bound to a workload. Workload binding is optional, so a dataplane presenting a tags-bound token can register with kuma.io/workload set to any value and obtain another workload's SPIFFE identity.

CVE-2026-18676 Medium · 5.1 CWE-346 Aug 12, 2026

Kong Mesh: default control plane config leaks the admin token cross-origin via a CORS wildcard and localhost admin

The default kuma-cp configuration in Kong Mesh reveals the admin bootstrap token and signing keys to any webpage the operator visits while the control plane is reachable from their browser. Due to a CORS misconfiguration a cross-origin fetch() from a malicious page returns the admin JWT and signing material.

CVE-2026-18675 Medium · 5.3 CWE-248 Aug 12, 2026

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

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.

CVE-2026-18673 Medium · 5.3 CWE-200 Aug 12, 2026

Kong Mesh: the kuma-dp readiness service exposes the Envoy admin API without authentication

When kuma-dp is configured with the Envoy admin API on a Unix domain socket, which is the default, its readiness service on TCP port 9902 - bound to all interfaces - forwards almost the entire Envoy admin API to any caller that can reach the port, with no authentication. An attacker with network access to a data plane's port 9902, for example another pod on the cluster network, can read Envoy and data plane configuration without credentials: config dumps, cluster and listener lists, stats, and the mesh trust bundle. Exposure is read-only - destructive Envoy admin actions are blocked and private keys are not exposed.