---
id: CVE-2026-41727
title: >-
  Spring Kafka's retry topic infrastructure did not sufficiently validate
  user-controlled header values before acting on them
summary: >-
  Spring Kafka's retry topic infrastructure did not sufficiently validate
  user-controlled header values before acting on them. A producer could send a
  record with a crafted retry_topic-attempts header to supply an out-of-range
  attempt coun…
severity: medium
cvss: 6.5
cvssVector: 'CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H'
cwe:
  - CWE-20
vendor: vmware
product: spring_for_apache_kafka
affected:
  - 'spring_for_apache_kafka >= 2.8.0, < 2.8.12'
  - 'spring_for_apache_kafka >= 2.9.0, < 2.9.14'
  - 'spring_for_apache_kafka >= 3.2.0, < 3.2.14'
  - 'spring_for_apache_kafka >= 3.3.0, < 3.3.15.1'
  - 'spring_for_apache_kafka >= 4.0.0, < 4.0.5.1'
patched:
  - spring_for_apache_kafka 4.0.5.1
published: '2026-06-10'
updated: '2026-07-17'
source: NVD
sourceUrl: 'https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-41727'
references:
  - url: 'https://spring.io/security/cve-2026-41727'
    label: security@vmware.com
tags:
  - nvd
epss: 0.0042
epssPercentile: 0.33593
ingestedAt: '2026-07-17T21:16:24.276Z'
---

## Overview

Spring Kafka's retry topic infrastructure did not sufficiently validate user-controlled header values before acting on them. A producer could send a record with a crafted retry_topic-attempts header to supply an out-of-range attempt count and cause the retry topic router to misidentify where the message was in the retry sequence.

Affected versions:
Spring for Apache Kafka 4.0.0 through 4.0.5; 3.3.0 through 3.3.15; 3.2.0 through 3.2.13; 2.9.0 through 2.9.13; 2.8.0 through 2.8.11.

## Affected

- `spring_for_apache_kafka >= 2.8.0, < 2.8.12`
- `spring_for_apache_kafka >= 2.9.0, < 2.9.14`
- `spring_for_apache_kafka >= 3.2.0, < 3.2.14`
- `spring_for_apache_kafka >= 3.3.0, < 3.3.15.1`
- `spring_for_apache_kafka >= 4.0.0, < 4.0.5.1`

## Remediation

Upgrade past the affected range:

- `spring_for_apache_kafka 4.0.5.1`