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Kong Mesh EUVDEUVD-2026-57398

| CVE-2026-18673 MEDIUM
Information Exposure (CWE-200)
2026-08-12 Kong GHSA-jcrf-7pr5-jv5v
5.3
CVSS 4.0 · Vendor: Kong
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Severity by source

Vendor (Kong) PRIMARY
5.3 MEDIUM
CVSS:4.0/AV:A/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:N/VC:L/VI:L/VA:L/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N/E:X/CR:X/IR:X/AR:X/MAV:X/MAC:X/MAT:X/MPR:X/MUI:X/MVC:X/MVI:X/MVA:X/MSC:X/MSI:X/MSA:X/S:X/AU:X/R:X/V:X/RE:X/U:X
vuln.today AI
4.3 MEDIUM

Adjacent network access required (pod network); no auth needed; strictly read-only exposure so integrity and availability are unaffected.

3.1 AV:A/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:N/A:N
4.0 AV:A/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:N/VC:L/VI:N/VA:N/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N

Primary rating from Vendor (Kong).

CVSS VectorVendor: Kong

Attack Vector
Adjacent
Attack Complexity
Low
Privileges Required
None
User Interaction
None
Scope
X

Lifecycle Timeline

2
Source Code Evidence Fetched
Aug 12, 2026 - 19:01 vuln.today
Analysis Generated
Aug 12, 2026 - 19:01 vuln.today

DescriptionCVE.org

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.

AnalysisAI

Unauthenticated exposure of Envoy admin data in kuma-dp (Kong Mesh data plane) allows any pod on the Kubernetes cluster network to retrieve internal service mesh configuration without credentials. The readiness service on TCP port 9902, bound to all interfaces, acted as an unprotected reverse proxy forwarding nearly all Envoy admin read endpoints - including config dumps, cluster and listener lists, stats, and the mesh trust bundle - to any adjacent network caller. No public exploit code or CISA KEV listing exists at time of analysis; exploitation is bounded by the adjacent network prerequisite, but the risk is elevated in multi-tenant clusters where untrusted pods share the pod network.

Technical ContextAI

kuma-dp is the data plane sidecar component of Kuma and Kong Mesh, a CNCF-hosted service mesh built on Envoy proxy. Envoy's admin API is normally exposed on a Unix domain socket (UDS) to avoid network exposure - a deliberate security boundary. The readiness reporter component (app/kuma-dp/pkg/dataplane/readiness/component.go) was designed to proxy the /ready endpoint from the UDS to a TCP listener (port 9902) so that Kubernetes kubelet probes could reach it. However, the implementation also installed a catch-all reverse proxy handler (net/http/httputil.ReverseProxy) that forwarded all non-mutating Envoy admin endpoints over TCP. Only three paths were blocked (/quitquitquit, /drain_listeners, /runtime_modify); all read-only endpoints such as /config_dump, /clusters, /stats, /certs, and /logging were forwarded without authentication. CWE-200 (Exposure of Sensitive Information to an Unauthorized Actor) accurately describes the root cause: a security boundary (UDS) was unintentionally bypassed by a proxy that bridged it to an open TCP port. The CPE cpe:2.3:a:kong_inc.:kong_mesh:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:* indicates all Kong Mesh versions are affected prior to the patch.

RemediationAI

Upgrade kuma-dp to the patched version incorporating the changes from GitHub PRs #17317 (https://github.com/kumahq/kuma/pull/17317) and #17418 (https://github.com/kumahq/kuma/pull/17418). The fix removes the Envoy admin reverse proxy handler entirely from the readiness reporter, restricting port 9902 to serve only the /ready endpoint; the Envoy admin API remains accessible exclusively over the Unix domain socket. The specific patched release version should be confirmed from the Kong Mesh changelog at https://developer.konghq.com/mesh/changelog/ before upgrading. As a compensating control pending upgrade, apply Kubernetes NetworkPolicy to each data plane pod namespace to allow inbound TCP connections on port 9902 only from the node's pod CIDR (required for kubelet liveness/readiness probes) and explicitly deny access from all other pods. Note: over-restricting NetworkPolicy may break kubelet health probes if the node IP range is not correctly allowed, so test in a staging environment before applying broadly.

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EUVD-2026-57398 vulnerability details – vuln.today

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