Files or Directories Accessible to External Parties, Improper Privilege Management vulnerability in Apache Kafka Clients.
Apache Kafka Clients accept configuration data for customizing behavior, and includes ConfigProvider plugins in order to manipulate these configurations. Apache Kafka also provides FileConfigProvider, DirectoryConfigProvider, and EnvVarConfigProvider implementations which include the ability to read from disk or environment variables.
In applications where Apache Kafka Clients configurations can be specified by an untrusted party, attackers may use these ConfigProviders to read arbitrary contents of the disk and environment variables.
In particular, this flaw may be used in Apache Kafka Connect to escalate from REST API access to filesystem/environment access, which may be undesirable in certain environments, including SaaS products.
This issue affects Apache Kafka Clients: from 2.3.0 through 3.5.2, 3.6.2, 3.7.0.
Users with affected applications are recommended to upgrade kafka-clients to version >=3.8.0, and set the JVM system property "org.apache.kafka.automatic.config.providers=none".
Users of Kafka Connect with one of the listed ConfigProvider implementations specified in their worker config are also recommended to add appropriate "allowlist.pattern" and "allowed.paths" to restrict their operation to appropriate bounds.
For users of Kafka Clients or Kafka Connect in environments that trust users with disk and environment variable access, it is not recommended to set the system property.
For users of the Kafka Broker, Kafka MirrorMaker 2.0, Kafka Streams, and Kafka command-line tools, it is not recommended to set the system property.
What the EG score is made of (scorer v4.0: the three questions the 0–10 score mixes, published apart · methodology)
The EG score (6.5): severity, escalated by confirmed exploitation. This CVE's 6.5 is its impact severity (EG Severity), not escalated.
- EG Severity
- 6.5 MEDIUMCVSS-B, impact only: no KEV listing, EPSS or EG-KEV tier raises it.GitHub Security Advisory CVSS
- EG Likelihood
- 1.3% within 30 daysSource: FIRST EPSS (model v2026.06.15, score date 2026-10-31). FIRST's exploitation probability, not an EchelonGraph model.
- Confirmed exploitation
- None on record (CISA KEV, EG-KEV Tier 1)Reported apart from the likelihood: an observed fact, not a probability.
- EG Priority
- SSVC Track at medium mission impactTrack at every mission impact level.CISA BOD 26-04: 60 days if the affected system is publicly exposed; Fix on system upgrade if it is not.Each input and its source, and whom BOD 26-04 binds: the SSVC and BOD 26-04 blocks below.
SSVC (CISA's decision table, applied by EchelonGraph)Track at every mission impact level.
A fix is available. Apply it within your standard update timelines.
Exploitation none (CISA Vulnrichment) · Automatable no (CISA Vulnrichment) · Technical impact partial (CISA Vulnrichment). All three are CISA's SSVC values (Vulnrichment). EchelonGraph applied CISA's decision table to them; CISA publishes SSVC inputs and the table, not a decision for each CVE. Mission impact is CISA's Mission & Well-being decision point, and only you can judge it. CISA's table makes it high when Mission Prevalence is Essential — the vulnerable component "directly provides capabilities that constitute at least one MEF for at least one entity" (MEF: mission essential function) — or when Public Well-Being Impact is Irreversible: "multiple fatalities are likely", the cyber-physical system "is likely lost or destroyed", "extreme or serious externalities" are imposed on other parties, or social systems such as elections or the financial grid "are destabilized and potentially collapse". CISA's decision table
BOD 26-04 (CISA's remediation timeline, Table 1)60 days if the affected system is publicly exposed; Fix on system upgrade if it is not.
The score's inputs: In CISA KEV no (CISA's KEV catalog) · Automatable no (CISA Vulnrichment) · Technical impact partial (CISA Vulnrichment). Whether your system is publicly exposed is yours to answer. BOD 26-04 binds US Federal Civilian Executive Branch agencies; for anyone else it is CISA's published timeline, a reference rather than an obligation. The directive · how EchelonGraph applies it