When an operator adds an HTTPS control plane profile to kumactl without providing a CA certificate, kumactl disables TLS verification and sends API tokens over the unverified connection.
An attacker on the network path between the operator and the control plane can intercept user or admin API tokens and then act against the control plane as that user.
You are affected if you have kumactl profiles manually added against an HTTPS control plane endpoint without --ca-cert-file.
You are not affected if you use the default local profile, which uses plain HTTP.
When adding an HTTPS control plane profile to kumactl, always pass --ca-cert-file pointing at the control plane's serving CA. Alternatively terminate the control plane behind a publicly trusted certificate.
Upgrade to Kong Mesh 2.7.26, 2.9.16, 2.11.14, 2.12.11 or 2.13.7, whichever matches your release line. Patched releases fall back to the operating system trust store instead of disabling verification, so a publicly trusted control plane certificate verifies with no further configuration. The 2.14 line shipped after the fix and was never affected.