CVE-2026-59317: In Spring for Apache Kafka, missing header validation in DeadLetterPublishingRecovererFactory enables denial of service via a poison-pill loop

Severity: medium (CVSS 6.5 v3.1)
Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
EPSS: 0.4% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
Public exploit or detection template: none known
Published: 2026-08-27 · updated 2026-09-04
Weakness: CWE-1284

Description

DeadLetterPublishingRecovererFactory reads the retry_topic-original-timestamp header from an inbound ConsumerRecord and passes its raw bytes directly to new BigInteger(header.value()) with no length or format validation. Spring for Apache Kafka 4.1.0 Spring for Apache Kafka 4.0.0 - 4.0.6 Spring for Apache Kafka 3.0.0 - 3.3.16 Spring for Apache Kafka 2.9.0 - 2.9.14 Spring for Apache Kafka 2.8.12 and earlier

Affected products

Spring for Apache Kafka: through 2.8.12; from 2.9.0 through 2.9.14; from 3.0.0 through 3.3.16; from 4.0.0 before 4.0.7; from 4.1.0 before 4.1.1 — fixed in 4.0.7, 4.1.1
Spring for Apache Kafka: from 4.0.0 through 4.0.6; from 3.0.0 through 3.3.16; from 2.9.0 through 2.9.14; through 2.8.12; 4.1.0

How to fix

Upgrade to a fixed version: Spring for Apache Kafka 4.0.7, 4.1.1. Check the vendor advisory for mitigations.

References

https://spring.io/security/cve-2026-59317

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