Kafka Connect BigQuery Connector versions prior to 2.11.0 allow an attacker to supply a malicious credential configuration when setting up the connector. The connector forwards the JSON credential file—including any credential_source.file paths or credential_source.url entries—to Google authentication libraries without validating the sources. This omission permits the attacker to read arbitrary files from the host or trigger Server‑Side Request Forgery against internal or external URLs. The weakness is a path traversal (CWE‑73) and a SSRF failure (CWE‑918).

The vulnerability affects the Aiven-Open:bigquery-connector-for-apache-kafka product. All released connector versions before v2.11.0 are susceptible. Users should verify their deployed connector version and update to v2.11.0 or later to remove the flaw.

The CVSS base score is 7.7, indicating a high impact. The EPSS score of less than 1% suggests a low probability of widespread exploitation at present, and the vulnerability is not listed in the CISA KEV catalog. The most likely attack vector occurs during connector configuration, where an attacker with the ability to submit or modify the credential JSON can trigger the read or SSRF. Failing to patch may result in disclosure of sensitive files or unintended network traffic from the connector host.