CVE-2024-31141 | Apache Kafka Clients: Privilege escalation to filesystem read-access via automatic ConfigProvider

Files or Directories Accessible to External Parties, Improper Privilege Management vulnerability in Apache Kafka Clients. Apache Kafka Clients accept configuration data for customizing behavior, and includes ConfigProvider plugins in order to manipulate these configurations. Apache Kafka also provides FileConfigProvider, DirectoryConfigProvider, and EnvVarConfigProvider implementations which include the ability to read from disk or environment variables. In applications where Apache Kafka Clients configurations can be specified by an untrusted party, attackers may use these ConfigProviders to read arbitrary contents of the disk and environment variables. In particular, this flaw may be used in Apache Kafka Connect to escalate from REST API access to filesystem/environment access, which may be undesirable in certain environments, including SaaS products. This issue affects Apache Kafka Clients: from 2.3.0 through 3.5.2, 3.6.2, 3.7.0. Users with affected applications are recommended to upgrade kafka-clients to version >=3.8.0, and set the JVM system property "org.apache.kafka.automatic.config.providers=none". Users of Kafka Connect with one of the listed ConfigProvider implementations specified in their worker config are also recommended to add appropriate "allowlist.pattern" and "allowed.paths" to restrict their operation to appropriate bounds. For users of Kafka Clients or Kafka Connect in environments that trust users with disk and environment variable access, it is not recommended to set the system property. For users of the Kafka Broker, Kafka MirrorMaker 2.0, Kafka Streams, and Kafka command-line tools, it is not recommended to set the system property.

Published: 2024-11-19 Last update: 2026-06-17 Assigner: [email protected] Source: [email protected]

Conclusion & alert: CVE-2024-31141 is rated Moderate Risk (48.7/100): CVSS Medium severity, with medium exploitation likelihood (EPSS 1.13%). Mandatory action: Review affected assets and schedule remediation.

Risk is dynamic; we continuously reassess and refresh what is shown on this page as upstream context changes.

Exploit prediction scoring system (EPSS) score for CVE-2024-31141

EPSS lead: Daily EPSS estimates relative likelihood of exploitation; percentile ranks this CVE among scored vulnerabilities (higher = more severe relative rank).

# Date Old EPSS score New EPSS score Delta (New - Old)
1 2026-06-15 0.16% 1.13% +0.97%
2 2026-04-10 0.09% 0.16% +0.07%
3 2025-11-21 0.09%

Full EPSS history (16 records total)

Common vulnerability scoring system (CVSS) metrics for CVE-2024-31141

CVSS metrics for this CVE.

Base score Version Severity Vector Exploitability Impact Score source
6.5 3.1 MEDIUM
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N Click to expand
Attack vector (AV:N)
Could be attacked over the internet or any normal routed network—not just someone sitting at the machine.
Attack complexity (AC:L)
Once they can reach the bug, pulling it off is straightforward—no weird race conditions or rare setup.
Privileges required (PR:L)
A normal user session is enough; they don’t have to be admin.
User interaction (UI:N)
Nobody has to click “OK” or open a trap file; it can work without a victim helping.
Scope (S:U)
Damage stays in the same “trust bubble” as the broken component—no big spill into unrelated systems.
Confidentiality (C:H)
Serious risk that confidential data gets exposed in a big way.
Integrity (I:N)
Data isn’t meaningfully altered or forged.
Availability (A:N)
Service keeps running; no real outage angle.
2.8 3.6 134c704f-9b21-4f2e-91b3-4a467353bcc0

Weakness enumeration for CVE-2024-31141

GitHub Security Advisory for CVE-2024-31141

GHSA-2x2g-32r7-p4x8 · Severity: medium · Ecosystem: maven — Apache Kafka Clients: Privilege escalation to filesystem read-access via automatic ConfigProvider

OS Trackers for CVE-2024-31141

vendor priority summary link
redhat medium https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2024-31141

Affected software / configurations for CVE-2024-31141

Vendor Product Version Raw CPE
apache kafka >= 2.3.0, <= 3.5.2 cpe:2.3:a:apache:kafka:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
apache kafka >= 3.6.0, <= 3.6.2 cpe:2.3:a:apache:kafka:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
apache kafka 3.7.0 cpe:2.3:a:apache:kafka:3.7.0:*:*:*:*:*:*:*

References for CVE-2024-31141

cvelogic Threat Intelligence