VulnerabilityPublished 28 Oct 2026Updated 5 Nov 2026

CVE-2026-111496: Kafka Streams derives its stream-time clock from record timestamps

Affects kafkaSource GCVE Database

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Authoritative record:CVE-2026-111496· High

Not known to be exploited.

Data as of 5 Nov 2026, 12:35 UTC

Severity

High

Rated by Threat Radar · CVSS not yet scored by NVD

Thin evidence

One scorer or none

Exploitation evidence

Disclosed: evidence found.
CVE published 28 Oct 2026
Detectable: no evidence on record.
No public nuclei template indexed
Weaponized: no evidence on record.
No public exploit code indexed in Metasploit or Exploit-DB
Exploited in the wildExploited: no evidence on record.
Not in CISA KEV and no source reports exploitation
Observed by OffSeq MirageSeen by Mirage: no evidence on record.
No attack traffic recorded by OffSeq Mirage sensors

A missing step is not evidence of safety. Sources: cve.org (opens in a new tab), the Metasploit, Exploit-DB and nuclei-templates index as of 5 Nov 2026.

Disclosed: The CVE record is public on cve.org. Its publication is t = 0.
Detectable: A public nuclei template can find exposed instances, for defenders and attackers alike.
Weaponized: A Metasploit exploit module or Exploit-DB entry exists (Metasploit scanner modules do not count), or CISA SSVC or the CVSS exploit maturity reports a public proof of concept.
Exploited in the wild: CISA KEV lists it, CISA SSVC rates exploitation active, or a source reports attacks.
Observed by OffSeq Mirage: OffSeq Mirage honeypot sensors recorded attack traffic for this CVE, or found exposed hosts without attack traffic.

Moments are spaced evenly, not to scale; a dashed line marks a gap of six months or more. Deltas count from t = 0. Sources that give only a date (CISA KEV, Exploit-DB, or a time of exactly 00:00Z) read “same day” rather than hours. Metasploit modules carry the flaw’s disclosure date, not their release date, and nuclei templates carry no date, so both appear above but not on the timeline.

What to do

Affected software

Product	Affected	Fixed in
Ubuntu Pro 18.04 LTSkafka`pkg:deb/ubuntu/kafka?arch=source&distro=esm-apps/bionic`Other threats	Affected =2.2.0u2-0ubuntu3.1 =2.2.0u2-0ubuntu3.2 =2.2.2u1-0ubuntu1+esm2	Fixed in–

Check your own hosts for these packages with threat-finder (opens in a new tab), our free open-source scanner.

Description

Kafka Streams derives its stream-time clock from record timestamps. PunctuationSchedule.next() computed the next punctuation time as timestamp + (intervalsMissed + 1) * interval with no overflow check. A record with a timestamp at or near Long.MAX_VALUE advances stream time to that value, so the next stream-time punctuation overflows to a negative time. PunctuationQueue then re-queues that time and loops on it indefinitely while holding a lock, stalling the StreamThread. Impact: A single record is enough. The affected StreamThread stops processing, and because the record stays in the topic the hang returns on restart; an application whose partitions are all affected becomes unresponsive. Only the Streams application is affected, not the brokers or the cluster. Triggering it needs write access to a source topic whose topology uses stream-time punctuation, and a broker that stores the record: brokers from Apache Kafka 4.0.0 reject such a timestamp by default (log.message.timestamp.after.max.ms, one hour), so it is reachable only on older brokers or where that bound has been relaxed. Mitigation: Upgrade Kafka Streams to 4.2.2, 4.3.2, or 4.4.0. As defense in depth, keep log.message.timestamp.after.max.ms bounded on source topics and restrict write access to them. Resolution: From Apache Kafka 4.2.2, 4.3.2, and 4.4.0: the next punctuation time is computed with overflow-checked arithmetic (clamped to Long.MAX_VALUE), and a rescheduled punctuation is re-queued only when its time moves forward.

References

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