Apache Kafka 3.1 End of Life Date
Apache Kafka 3.1 end-of-life date, support status, and CVE risk. Data reconciled from official vendor documentation and endoflife.date at every build; the source of each date is on the product page.
Apache Kafka 3.1 was released on January 24, 2022 and support ended on September 19, 2022 — a supported lifespan of 8 months, longer than the 6 months median for Apache Kafka releases. The last patch it will ever receive is 3.1.2, published September 9, 2022 — 10 days before support ended. It has been without security patches for 4 years and 1 month. 11 newer Apache Kafka releases have shipped since.
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When Apache Kafka 3.1 reaches end of life, the maintainers stop issuing security patches for this version. CVEs discovered after the EOL date are publicly disclosed on the National Vulnerability Database with no patch available. Exploit code frequently appears on GitHub within days of disclosure.
The CVE blind spot: A CVE-based scan does not show the ongoing accumulation of unpatched vulnerabilities in EOL software versions. Some scanners flag unsupported versions of common products, but coverage varies, and none of them give you the date in advance. Running Apache Kafka 3.1 past its EOL date creates a growing attack surface that a clean scan result does not rule out.
Migrate to Apache Kafka 4.3 or implement compensating controls — network segmentation, enhanced monitoring, restricted access — while migration is underway.