CVE-2026-59278: VMware Spring For Apache Kafka

Medium severity, CVSS 6.5. EPSS: 0.3% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days.

JsonKafkaHeaderMapper and DefaultKafkaHeaderMapper include java.net in their default trusted packages list. When these mappers are used — which is the default configuration for all @KafkaListener consumers — an external Kafka producer can inject a java.net.InetAddress type via the spring_json_header_types message header. 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

• VMware Spring For Apache Kafka: before 2.8.13 (fixed in 2.8.13); from 2.9.0, before 2.9.15 (fixed in 2.9.15); from 3.0.0, before 3.3.17 (fixed in 3.3.17); from 4.0.0, before 4.0.6.1 (fixed in 4.0.6.1); from 4.1.0, before 4.1.0.1 (fixed in 4.1.0.1)

Published 2026-08-27. Last modified 2026-09-01.