CVE-2026-114349

Description

A flaw was found in Apache Kafka. An authenticated attacker with write permissions to a topic can cause a Denial of Service (DoS) by sending a specially crafted compressed record batch. Because the broker allocates memory based on an unvalidated record size declared in the decompressed data stream, processing the request exhausts system memory. This failure can crash broker request threads, terminate the server, or halt background log compaction tasks.

Statement

Red Hat rates the impact of this vulnerability as Moderate because exploitation requires an authenticated client with write permissions to a Kafka topic. In typical Red Hat deployments, topic-level access controls and authenticated principal restrictions constrain producer capabilities to trusted workloads, narrowing the attack surface. Although a successful denial-of-service attack can disrupt broker availability or halt log-cleaning threads, the vulnerability cannot be leveraged to access confidential information or tamper with persisted message data.

Understanding the Weakness (CWE)

Availability

Technical Impact: DoS: Resource Consumption (CPU); DoS: Resource Consumption (Memory); DoS: Resource Consumption (Other)

When allocating resources without limits, an attacker could prevent other systems, applications, or processes from accessing the same type of resource. It can be easy for an attacker to consume many resources by rapidly making many requests or causing larger resources to be used than is needed.

Frequently Asked Questions

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