ingress-nginx: Improper Isolation or Compartmentalization leading to remote code execution (CVE-2025-1974) #shorts

Summary

In today's episode, we discuss CVE-2025-1974, a critical vulnerability in Kubernetes affecting the ingress-nginx controller. This issue allows unauthenticated attackers to execute arbitrary code, posing significant risks to Kubernetes environments.

Product details

The CVE affects Kubernetes ingress-nginx, specifically versions up to 1.11.4 and 1.12.0. It is associated with Kubernetes, a widely-used open-source platform for managing containerized applications.

Vulnerability type summary

CVE-2025-1974 is classified under CWE-653, which refers to Improper Isolation or Compartmentalization. This type of vulnerability arises when a system fails to properly separate or isolate certain components, leading to potential security breaches.

Details of the vulnerability

The vulnerability allows unauthenticated attackers with access to the pod network to execute arbitrary code within the ingress-nginx controller's context. This can lead to the disclosure of sensitive information, such as Secrets, that the controller can access. In default configurations, these secrets can be accessed cluster-wide, escalating the impact of the attack.

Conclusion

Kubernetes users, particularly those utilizing the ingress-nginx controller, should update their systems immediately to mitigate the risk of remote code execution attacks. With patches already released, it's crucial to act quickly to protect sensitive data and maintain the integrity of your Kubernetes infrastructure.

This chain involves the following actors

This following systems are involved

Attack entry point

Remediation actions

Exploitation actions

• https://https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/issues/131009
• [2025-04-23] Overview of CVE-2025-1974 in Kubernetes Ingress-NGINX, including a proof-of-concept, mitigations, and detection strategies.