Copyright © 2012 Red Hat, Inc. All rights reserved. Moderate 2026-06-10T20:13:11 kafka-python: kafka-python: Denial of Service due to crafted frame length in protocol parser 5.9 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H CWE-770

kafka-python prior to 2.3.2 contains a denial-of-service vulnerability in the protocol parser that allows a malicious broker or machine-in-the-middle attacker to exhaust memory or hang connections by sending a crafted 4-byte frame length value without bounds validation. Attackers can send a specially crafted frame length through the receive_bytes() function to trigger either a multi-gigabyte memory allocation or an uncaught ValueError that leaves the connection in a broken state, causing requests to hang and consumers to stop heartbeating until restart.

A flaw was found in kafka-python. A malicious broker or a machine-in-the-middle attacker can exploit a denial-of-service vulnerability in the protocol parser. By sending a specially crafted 4-byte frame length value without proper bounds validation, an attacker can trigger excessive memory allocation or cause connections to hang. This can lead to unresponsive requests and consumers failing to heartbeat, resulting in a denial of service.

A flaw was found in kafka-python. The protocol parser does not validate frame length values, allowing a malicious broker or man-in-the-middle attacker to exhaust memory or hang connections by sending a crafted 4-byte frame length. This can cause multi-gigabyte memory allocation or leave connections in a broken state, causing consumers to stop heartbeating until restart. Upgrade to kafka-python 2.3.2 or later. As a workaround, ensure Kafka broker connections use TLS with mutual authentication to prevent man-in-the-middle attacks. Red Hat Quay 3 Fix deferred quay/quay-rhel8 Red Hat Quay 3 Fix deferred quay/quay-rhel9 https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2026-10142 https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-10142 https://github.com/dpkp/kafka-python/commit/6e4831444f972d169cdd11f5c8d50333cea3f19b https://github.com/dpkp/kafka-python/pull/3019 https://github.com/dpkp/kafka-python/pull/3026 https://www.vulncheck.com/advisories/kafka-python-prior-to-denial-of-service-via-protocol-parser-frame-length