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CVE-2026-33557

Apache Kafka: Missing JWT token validation in OAUTHBEARER authentication PUBLISHED

Description (CNA)

A possible security vulnerability has been identified in Apache Kafka. By default, the broker property `sasl.oauthbearer.jwt.validator.class` is set to `org.apache.kafka.common.security.oauthbearer.DefaultJwtValidator`. It accepts any JWT token without validating its signature, issuer, or audience. An attacker can generate a JWT token from any issuer with the `preferred_username` set to any user, and the broker will accept it. We advise the Kafka users using kafka v4.1.0 or v4.1.1 to set the config `sasl.oauthbearer.jwt.validator.class` to `org.apache.kafka.common.security.oauthbearer.BrokerJwtValidator` explicitly to avoid this vulnerability. Since Kafka v4.1.2 and v4.2.0 and later, the issue is fixed and will correctly validate the JWT token.

Affected (CNA)

Vendor / productVersions
Apache Software Foundation / Apache Kafkaaffected 4.1.0 through 4.1.1

CWE

CWE-1285

References

ADP enrichment

CVE

No English description supplied.

CISA-ADP

No English description supplied.

No references supplied.

redhat-SADP

A flaw was found in Apache Kafka. By default, the `sasl.oauthbearer.jwt.validator.class` property is set to `org.apache.kafka.common.security.oauthbearer.DefaultJwtValidator`, which does not validate JSON Web Token (JWT) signatures, issuers, or audiences. A remote attacker can exploit this by crafting a malicious JWT token with an arbitrary `preferred_username`, leading to an authentication bypass and unauthorized access to the Kafka broker.