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CVE-2026-111496EUVD-2026-112171GHSA-F6X4-CQ8Q-X8CQ

Apache Kafka: Kafka Streams StreamThread hang from integer overflow in stream-time punctuation

Published
Last modified
published
Not listed in CISA KEV
Low (apache)
None on Exploit-DB, Metasploit or GitHub

Summary

Apache Kafka's Kafka Streams library is affected, and only Streams applications that use stream-time punctuation are at risk, not the Kafka brokers or cluster. A single crafted record with an extremely large timestamp can cause a Streams processing thread to hang, making the affected application unresponsive until it is fixed.

Summarized by anthropic/claude-haiku-5.5. Verify details against the original sources.

Read the original description

Kafka Streams derives its stream-time clock from record timestamps. PunctuationSchedule.next() computed the next punctuation time as timestamp + (intervalsMissed + 1) * interval with no overflow check. A record with a timestamp at or near Long.MAX_VALUE advances stream time to that value, so the next stream-time punctuation overflows to a negative time. PunctuationQueue then re-queues that time and loops on it indefinitely while holding a lock, stalling the StreamThread. Impact: A single record is enough. The affected StreamThread stops processing, and because the record stays in the topic the hang returns on restart; an application whose partitions are all affected becomes unresponsive. Only the Streams application is affected, not the brokers or the cluster. Triggering it needs write access to a source topic whose topology uses stream-time punctuation, and a broker that stores the record: brokers from Apache Kafka 4.0.0 reject such a timestamp by default (log.message.timestamp.after.max.ms, one hour), so it is reachable only on older brokers or where that bound has been relaxed. Mitigation: Upgrade Kafka Streams to 4.2.2, 4.3.2, or 4.4.0. As defense in depth, keep log.message.timestamp.after.max.ms bounded on source topics and restrict write access to them. Resolution: From Apache Kafka 4.2.2, 4.3.2, and 4.4.0: the next punctuation time is computed with overflow-checked arithmetic (clamped to Long.MAX_VALUE), and a rescheduled punctuation is re-queued only when its time moves forward.

Timeline

  1. CVE published
  2. First seen by cve.now
  3. Record last updated

Affected versions

  • org.apache.kafka:kafka-streams

    From 1.1.0 · through 4.1.2; From 4.2.0 · through 4.2.1; From 4.3.0 · through 4.3.1

References 1

kafka.apache.org