VulnerabilityPublished 3 Feb 2026Updated 18 Feb 2026

CVE-2026-24514: Kubernetes ingress-nginx · Unthrottled Resource Allocation

Affects Kubernetes ingress-nginxSource CVE Database V5

Not known to be exploited · CVSS 6.5 Medium : upgrade to 1.14.3 or 1.13.7 when convenient.

Data as of 26 Oct 2026, 13:47 UTC

CVSS 3.1 base score

6.5Medium

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

EPSS: 0.5% chance of exploitation in 30 days – higher than 44% 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:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

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

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: Low: Specialized access conditions or extenuating circumstances do not exist. An attacker can expect repeatable success against the vulnerable component.
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: None: There is no loss of confidentiality within the impacted component.
Integrity: None: There is no loss of integrity within the impacted component.
Availability: High: There is total loss of availability, resulting in the attacker being able to fully deny access to resources in the impacted component; this loss is either sustained (while the attacker continues to deliver the attack) or persistent (the condition persists even after the attack has completed). Alternatively, the attacker has the ability to deny some availability, but the loss of availability presents a direct, serious consequence to the impacted component (e.g., the attacker cannot disrupt existing connections, but can prevent new connections; the attacker can repeatedly exploit a vulnerability that, in each instance of a successful attack, leaks a only small amount of memory, but after repeated exploitation causes a service to become completely unavailable).

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 26 Oct 2026.

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 or the CVSS exploit maturity 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

2) If patches are not yet available, consider disabling the validating admission controller feature temporarily or restricting its exposure to trusted networks only. 3) Implement resource limits and request quotas at the Kubernetes pod and container level to prevent ingress-nginx pods from consuming excessive memory. 4) Use network policies or firewall rules to limit access to the admission controller endpoint, allowing only trusted sources to send requests. 5) Monitor ingress-nginx controller pod memory usage and node memory pressure closely to detect abnormal consumption early. 6) Employ rate limiting or request size restrictions at upstream load balancers or API gateways to prevent large or excessive requests from reaching the admission controller. 7) Conduct regular security assessments and penetration tests focusing on ingress-nginx components to identify potential exploitation attempts. These targeted mitigations go beyond generic advice by focusing on controlling resource consumption and limiting attack surface exposure specific to the validating admission controller.

Description

A security issue was discovered in ingress-nginx where the validating admission controller feature is subject to a denial of service condition. By sending large requests to the validating admission controller, an attacker can cause memory consumption, which may result in the ingress-nginx controller pod being killed or the node running out of memory.

Impact

The primary impact of CVE-2026-24514 is denial of service (DoS) due to resource exhaustion. Organizations running Kubernetes clusters with ingress-nginx controllers that have the vulnerable validating admission controller enabled may experience pod crashes or node instability caused by memory exhaustion. This can lead to service outages for applications relying on ingress-nginx for routing and load balancing, affecting availability and potentially causing cascading failures in dependent services. Since the vulnerability does not affect confidentiality or integrity, data breaches or unauthorized modifications are not direct concerns. However, the disruption of critical ingress services can severely impact business operations, especially for environments with high traffic or multi-tenant clusters. The ease of exploitation (network access with low privileges and no user interaction) increases the risk, particularly in public-facing clusters or those exposed to untrusted networks.

Summary

CVE-2026-24514 is a vulnerability classified under CWE-770 (Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling) affecting the ingress-nginx component of Kubernetes. The ingress-nginx controller includes a validating admission controller feature that processes incoming requests to enforce policies before they reach the cluster. This vulnerability arises because the admission controller does not impose limits or throttling on the size or volume of requests it processes. An attacker with network access can send abnormally large or numerous requests to the validating admission controller, causing it to consume excessive memory resources. This uncontrolled memory consumption can exhaust the memory allocated to the ingress-nginx controller pod, causing the pod to be terminated by the Kubernetes scheduler or the node to run out of memory, potentially impacting other workloads on the same node. The vulnerability has a CVSS v3.1 base score of 6.5, reflecting medium severity, with the vector indicating network attack vector (AV:N), low attack complexity (AC:L), requiring low privileges (PR:L), no user interaction (UI:N), unchanged scope (S:U), no impact on confidentiality or integrity (C:N/I:N), but high impact on availability (A:H). There are no patches or known exploits publicly available at the time of publication, but the risk of denial of service remains significant for clusters using ingress-nginx with the vulnerable validating admission controller enabled.

CWE-770Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling (opens in a new tab)
Base weaknessLikelihood of exploit: HighCWE Top 25 (2025): #25
The product allocates a reusable resource or group of resources on behalf of an actor without imposing any intended restrictions on the size or number of resources that can be allocated.
Requirements
Clearly specify the minimum and maximum expectations for capabilities, and dictate which behaviors are acceptable when resource allocation reaches limits.
Architecture and Design
Limit the amount of resources that are accessible to unprivileged users. Set per-user limits for resources. Allow the system administrator to define these limits. Be careful to avoid CWE-410.
Architecture and Design
Design throttling mechanisms into the system architecture. The best protection is to limit the amount of resources that an unauthorized user can cause to be expended.
OWASP Cheat Sheets
Abuse Case (opens in a new tab)
OWASP ASVS 4.0.3
V8.1.4 (opens in a new tab)
V13.4.1 (opens in a new tab)
V11.1.4 (opens in a new tab)
Attack patterns
XML Ping of the Death (opens in a new tab)
Exponential Data Expansion (opens in a new tab)
Serialized Data Parameter Blowup (opens in a new tab)
Serialized Data with Nested Payloads (opens in a new tab)
Oversized Serialized Data Payloads (opens in a new tab)
From MITRE CWE, MITRE CAPEC and OWASP (Top 10, OpenCRE).

References

github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/issues/136680 (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-770

Technical details

References

Community reviews

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