CVE-2026-24513VulnerabilityPublished 3 Feb 2026Updated 18 Feb 2026

CVE-2026-24513: Kubernetes ingress-nginx · Unchecked Error Condition

Affects Kubernetes ingress-nginxSource CVE Database V5

Not known to be exploited · CVSS 3.1 Low : upgrade to 1.14.3 or 1.13.7 when convenient.

Data as of 26 Oct 2026, 06:26 UTC

CVSS 3.1 base score

3.1Low

How severe the flaw is on the 0–10 CVSS scale.

EPSS: 0.3% chance of exploitation in 30 days – higher than 27% of CVEsExploit Prediction Scoring System: the likelihood attackers will use this flaw soon.
Patch: Available – fixed in 1.14.3, 1.13.7

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:N/A:N

Attack Vector: Network
Attack Complexity: High
Privileges Required: Low
User Interaction: None
Scope: Unchanged
Confidentiality: Low
Integrity: None
Availability: None

Bold values are the worst case: easiest to exploit or largest impact.

Attack Vector: Network: The vulnerable component is bound to the network stack and the set of possible attackers extends beyond the other options listed, up to and including the entire Internet. Such a vulnerability is often termed 'remotely exploitable' and can be thought of as an attack being exploitable at the protocol level one or more network hops away (e.g., across one or more routers).
Attack Complexity: High: A successful attack depends on conditions beyond the attacker's control. That is, a successful attack cannot be accomplished at will, but requires the attacker to invest in some measurable amount of effort in preparation or execution against the vulnerable component before a successful attack can be expected. For example, a successful attack may require an attacker to: gather knowledge about the environment in which the vulnerable target/component exists; prepare the target environment to improve exploit reliability; or inject themselves into the logical network path between the target and the resource requested by the victim in order to read and/or modify network communications (e.g., a man in the middle attack).
Privileges Required: Low: The attacker is authorized with (i.e., requires) privileges that provide basic user capabilities that could normally affect only settings and files owned by a user. Alternatively, an attacker with Low privileges may have the ability to cause an impact only to non-sensitive resources.
User Interaction: None: The vulnerable system can be exploited without any interaction from any user.
Scope: Unchanged: An exploited vulnerability can only affect resources managed by the same security authority. In this case, the vulnerable component and the impacted component are either the same, or both are managed by the same security authority.
Confidentiality: Low: There is some loss of confidentiality. Access to some restricted information is obtained, but the attacker does not have control over what information is obtained, or the amount or kind of loss is limited. The information disclosure does not cause a direct, serious loss to the impacted component.
Integrity: None: There is no loss of integrity within the impacted component.
Availability: None: There is no impact to availability within the impacted component.

Definitions: FIRST CVSS v3.1 specification.

Exploitation evidence

Disclosed: evidence found.
CVE published 3 Feb 2026
Detectable: no evidence on record.
No public nuclei template indexed
Weaponised: no evidence on record.
No public exploit code indexed in Metasploit or Exploit-DB
Exploited in the wildExploited: no evidence on record.
Not in CISA KEV and no source reports exploitation
Observed by OffSeq MirageSeen by Mirage: no evidence on record.
No attack traffic recorded by OffSeq Mirage sensors

A missing step is not evidence of safety. Sources: cve.org (opens in a new tab), the Metasploit, Exploit-DB and nuclei-templates index as of 2026-10-26.

Disclosed: The CVE record is public on cve.org. Its publication is t = 0.
Detectable: A public nuclei template can find exposed instances, for defenders and attackers alike.
Weaponised: Public exploit code exists in Metasploit or Exploit-DB, or CISA SSVC reports a public proof of concept.
Exploited in the wild: CISA KEV lists it, CISA SSVC rates exploitation active, or a source reports attacks.
Observed by OffSeq Mirage: OffSeq Mirage honeypot sensors recorded attack traffic for this CVE, or found exposed hosts without attack traffic.

Moments are spaced evenly, not to scale; a dashed line marks a gap of six months or more. Deltas count from t = 0. Sources that give only a date (CISA KEV, Exploit-DB, or a time of exactly 00:00Z) read “same day” rather than hours. Metasploit modules carry the flaw’s disclosure date, not their release date, and nuclei templates carry no date, so both appear above but not on the timeline.

What to do

Upgrade Kubernetes ingress-nginx to 1.14.3 or 1.13.7.

Affected software

Product	Affected	Fixed in
Kubernetesingress-nginx	Affected <1.13.7 <1.14.3	Fixed in–
GitHubingress-nginx`pkg:github/ingress-nginx`Other threats	Affected <1.13.7 <1.14.3	Fixed in 1.13.7 1.14.3
GitHubkubernetes/ingress-nginx`pkg:github/kubernetes/ingress-nginx`Other threats	Affected =0	Fixed in–

Check your own hosts for these packages with threat-finder (opens in a new tab), our free open-source scanner.

AI-suggested

To mitigate this vulnerability, organizations should avoid configuring ingress-nginx with custom default error backends that handle HTTP 401 or 403 errors unless the backend is fully verified to respect the X-Code HTTP header correctly. Administrators should: 1) Use the built-in custom-errors backend provided by ingress-nginx, which is confirmed to handle authentication failure headers properly. 2) If a custom error backend is necessary, thoroughly test it to ensure it respects the X-Code HTTP header and correctly signals authentication failures to ingress-nginx. 3) Review and audit ingress-nginx configurations to detect any use of external custom error backends and validate their behavior. 4) Monitor ingress-nginx logs for unexpected access patterns or authentication bypass attempts. 5) Keep ingress-nginx and Kubernetes components updated to incorporate any future patches addressing this issue. 6) Implement defense-in-depth by combining ingress-nginx authentication with additional network segmentation and access controls to limit exposure if bypass occurs.

Description

A security issue was discovered in ingress-nginx where the protection afforded by the `auth-url` Ingress annotation may not be effective in the presence of a specific misconfiguration. If the ingress-nginx controller is configured with a default custom-errors configuration that includes HTTP errors 401 or 403, and if the configured default custom-errors backend is defective and fails to respect the X-Code HTTP header, then an Ingress with the `auth-url` annotation may be accessed even when authentication fails. Note that the built-in custom-errors backend works correctly. To trigger this issue requires an administrator to specifically configure ingress-nginx with a broken external component.

Impact

The primary impact of this vulnerability is a partial bypass of authentication controls enforced by the auth-url annotation in ingress-nginx, potentially allowing unauthorized access to protected Ingress resources. This could lead to exposure of sensitive internal services or data that rely on ingress-nginx for access control. However, the impact is limited because exploitation requires a specific misconfiguration involving a defective custom error backend that mishandles HTTP 401/403 responses. There is no direct impact on data integrity or service availability, and the vulnerability does not allow privilege escalation or remote code execution. Organizations using the default built-in error backend are not affected. The risk is mainly to environments where administrators have customized error handling without fully validating the backend’s behavior. This could affect multi-tenant Kubernetes clusters or environments with strict access control requirements, potentially undermining security policies and compliance.

CWE-754Improper Check for Unusual or Exceptional Conditions (opens in a new tab)
Class weaknessLikelihood of exploit: MediumOWASP Top 10 A10:2025: Mishandling of Exceptional Conditions (opens in a new tab)
The product does not check or incorrectly checks for unusual or exceptional conditions that are not expected to occur frequently during day to day operation of the product.
Requirements · Language Selection
Use a language that does not allow this weakness to occur or provides constructs that make this weakness easier to avoid.
Implementation
Check the results of all functions that return a value and verify that the value is expected.
Implementation
If using exception handling, catch and throw specific exceptions instead of overly-general exceptions (CWE-396, CWE-397). Catch and handle exceptions as locally as possible so that exceptions do not propagate too far up the call stack (CWE-705). Avoid unchecked or uncaught exceptions where feasible (CWE-248).
OWASP Cheat Sheets
Logging (opens in a new tab)
Error Handling (opens in a new tab)
OWASP ASVS 4.0.3
V11.1.7 (opens in a new tab)
From MITRE CWE, MITRE CAPEC and OWASP (Top 10, OpenCRE).

References

github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/issues/136679 (opens in a new tab)

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Exploitation evidence

What to do

Affected software

Description

AI analysisMachine-generated, updated 19 Feb 2026, 12:41 UTC

WeaknessesCWE-754

Technical details

References

Community reviews

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