CVE-2026-18679

Summary

When kuma-dp is started against an HTTPS control plane and the operator did not pass a CA certificate, the data plane connects with TLS peer verification disabled, and the dataplane authentication token is sent over that unverified connection.

An on-path actor can intercept the dataplane authentication token and impersonate the control plane to the data plane, injecting a forged bootstrap configuration and taking over the proxy.

Affected Software

VendorProductVersion RangeStatus
Kong Inc.Kong Mesh0 < 2.7.26affected
Kong Inc.Kong Mesh2.8.0 < 2.9.16affected
Kong Inc.Kong Mesh2.10.0 < 2.11.14affected
Kong Inc.Kong Mesh2.12.0 < 2.12.11affected
Kong Inc.Kong Mesh2.13.0 < 2.13.7affected

Weaknesses

  • CWE-295: CWE-295 Improper Certificate Validation

Workarounds

Set –ca-cert-file, or KUMA_CONTROL_PLANE_CA_CERT, on every universal mode data plane and point it at the control plane's serving CA. Alternatively terminate the control plane behind a publicly trusted certificate.

References