A possible security vulnerability has been identified in Apache Kafka.
By default, the broker property `sasl.oauthbearer.jwt.validator.class` is set to `org.apache.kafka.common.security.oauthbearer.DefaultJwtValidator`. It accepts any JWT token without validating its signature, issuer, or audience. An attacker can generate a JWT token from any issuer with the `preferred_username` set to any user, and the broker will accept it.
We advise the Kafka users using kafka v4.1.0 or v4.1.1 to set the config `sasl.oauthbearer.jwt.validator.class` to `org.apache.kafka.common.security.oauthbearer.BrokerJwtValidator` explicitly to avoid this vulnerability. Since Kafka v4.1.2 and v4.2.0 and later, the issue is fixed and will correctly validate the JWT token.
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Mon, 20 Apr 2026 16:45:00 +0000
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| Description | A possible security vulnerability has been identified in Apache Kafka. By default, the broker property `sasl.oauthbearer.jwt.validator.class` is set to `org.apache.kafka.common.security.oauthbearer.DefaultJwtValidator`. It accepts any JWT token without validating its signature, issuer, or audience. An attacker can generate a JWT token from any issuer with the `preferred_username` set to any user, and the broker will accept it. We advise the Kafka users using kafka v4.1.0 or v4.1.1 to set the config `sasl.oauthbearer.jwt.validator.class` to `org.apache.kafka.common.security.oauthbearer.BrokerJwtValidator` explicitly to avoid this vulnerability. Since Kafka v4.1.2 and v4.2.0 and later, the issue is fixed and will correctly validate the JWT token. | |
| Title | Apache Kafka: Missing JWT token validation in OAUTHBEARER authentication | |
| Weaknesses | CWE-1285 | |
| References |
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Status: PUBLISHED
Assigner: apache
Published:
Updated: 2026-04-20T14:30:30.936Z
Reserved: 2026-03-23T03:14:53.527Z
Link: CVE-2026-33557
Updated: 2026-04-20T13:38:51.117Z
Status : Awaiting Analysis
Published: 2026-04-20T14:16:18.780
Modified: 2026-04-20T19:05:30.750
Link: CVE-2026-33557
No data.
OpenCVE Enrichment
Updated: 2026-04-20T16:45:11Z