Kong Gateway Enterprise: HTTP header injection via X-Forwarded-Prefix
Summary
Kong Gateway Enterprise and Kong AI Gateway pass decoded CR and LF characters from the request path into the X-Forwarded-Prefix header on regex Routes. A remote attacker who can send requests to such a Route can inject HTTP headers and smuggle requests to upstream services behind the gateway. The CVSS 4.0 score is 7.8, and the impact falls mainly on the upstream systems rather than the gateway itself.
Affected
- Kong Gateway Enterprise 3.10.0.0 to before 3.10.0.20
- Kong Gateway Enterprise 3.13.0.0 to before 3.13.0.12
- Kong Gateway Enterprise 3.14.0.0 to before 3.14.0.17
- Kong Gateway Enterprise 3.15.0.0 to before 3.15.0.7
- Kong Gateway Enterprise 3.16.0.0 to before 3.16.0.2
- Kong AI Gateway 2.2.0 to before 2.2.1
Only regex Routes are in scope according to the CVE description.
Fixed in
- Kong Gateway Enterprise 3.10.0.20, 3.13.0.12, 3.14.0.17, 3.15.0.7 and 3.16.0.2 (per CVE record)
- Kong AI Gateway 2.2.1 (per CVE record). The AI Gateway changelog lists the related fix under 2.3.0, so verify the exact release notes before rollout.
Workaround
Unknown. No vendor-documented workaround was found.
Exploitation
- Not listed in the CISA KEV catalog at the time of research.
- No public proof of concept found by third-party trackers.
- Status beyond the first day after publication is unknown.
Our recommendation
- Identify all Kong Gateway Enterprise and Kong AI Gateway instances and check which routes use regex paths.
- Patch to the fixed version of your branch, starting with internet-facing gateways that have regex Routes.
- Until patched, restrict which clients can reach regex Routes.
- Monitor the gateway and upstream services for malformed requests and unusual headers.
- Recheck KEV and proof-of-concept sources regularly.
Public exploits
PoC-in-GitHub, Metasploit and Exploit-DB list nothing for this CVE.
Research sources
- CVE Record CVE-2026-92441 www.cve.org
- Kong Gateway changelog developer.konghq.com
- Kong AI Gateway changelog developer.konghq.com
- OffSeq Radar: CVE-2026-92441 radar.offseq.com
- TheHackerWire: CVE-2026-92441 www.thehackerwire.com
Researched and written up in English and German by an AI (Claude by Anthropic) based on NVD, CISA, EPSS and the sources listed. The vendor information is authoritative. Researched on 11 Nov 2026, 02:02.
Original description (NVD)
Kong Gateway Enterprise and Kong AI Gateway include decoded CR/LF characters from the request path in the X-Forwarded-Prefix header on regex Routes, allowing HTTP header injection and request smuggling to the upstream.
Sources
The tracker combines official, freely usable data sources – updated continuously:
- NVD (NIST) – CVEs, rating (CVSS), affected products
- CISA KEV – vulnerabilities confirmed by CISA as actively exploited
- CISA Vulnrichment – CISA assessment (SSVC) in the official CVE record
- FIRST EPSS – probability of exploitation
- Microsoft MSRC – Patch Tuesday: vulnerabilities, severity, updates
- PoC-in-GitHub – public proof-of-concept repositories
- Metasploit (Rapid7) – modules of the Metasploit Framework
- Exploit-DB (OffSec) – archive of public exploits (links only)
- Patch days: official vendor pages (linked per vendor) (Vendor patch days)
This product uses data from the NVD API but is not endorsed or certified by the NVD. EPSS data © FIRST.org.
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