Kafka Streams derives its stream-time clock from record timestamps.
CVE-2026-111496
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.MAXVALUE 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…
Assessment
- CVSS
- Not yet scored
- Severity
- Unscored
- Known exploited
- Not listed in CISA KEV
- Exploit availability
- Nothing found in Exploit-DB, Metasploit, Nuclei or public PoC repositories
- Published
- 28 October 2026
- Last updated
- 29 October 2026
- Weakness
- CWE-190, CWE-835
- Assigner
- security@apache.org
At the source
References
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