Kong Gateway Enterprise: Content safety bypass via large request bodies
Summary
The ai-azure-content-safety plugin in Kong Gateway Enterprise does not inspect request bodies larger than the in-memory body buffer. Prompts sent in such requests can bypass the input content-safety check. Exploitation requires network access and no privileges, but only affects systems where this plugin is enabled.
Affected
- Kong Gateway Enterprise 3.13.0.0 to before 3.13.0.12
- Kong Gateway Enterprise 3.14.0.0 to before 3.14.0.11
- Kong Gateway Enterprise 3.15.0.0 to before 3.15.0.4
- Kong Gateway Enterprise 3.16.0.0 to before 3.16.0.1
- Relevant only with the ai-azure-content-safety plugin enabled.
Fixed in
- 3.13.0.12
- 3.14.0.11
- 3.15.0.4
- 3.16.0.1
- Confirm the exact build against the Kong changelog, as the release mapping for the 3.13 to 3.15 branches could not be fully verified.
Workaround
Unknown. No vendor workaround is published. Limiting request body size is an untested analyst suggestion and may block legitimate requests.
Exploitation
- Not known to be exploited.
- No public proof of concept found.
Our recommendation
- Identify Kong Gateway Enterprise nodes with ai-azure-content-safety enabled.
- Upgrade each affected branch to the fixed version.
- Until patched, test any request size limit before applying it in production.
- Review logs for unusually large AI endpoint requests that were not inspected.
Public exploits
PoC-in-GitHub, Metasploit and Exploit-DB list nothing for this CVE.
Research sources
- CVE Record CVE-2026-96437 www.cve.org
- Kong Gateway changelog developer.konghq.com
- OffSeq threat radar entry radar.offseq.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, 01:24.
Original description (NVD)
The ai-azure-content-safety plugin in Kong Gateway Enterprise skips inspection of request bodies larger than the in-memory body buffer, allowing prompts to bypass input content-safety checks.
NVD references (1)
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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