Mar 24, 2025 • Wiz Security Research
IngressNightmare: CVE-2025-1974 - 9.8 Critical Unauthenticated Remote Code Execution Vulnerabilities in Ingress NGINX
A critical vulnerability identified as CVE-2025-1974, dubbed IngressNightmare, affects Ingress NGINX controllers with a CVSS score of 9.8. This...
Executive Summary
A critical vulnerability identified as CVE-2025-1974, dubbed IngressNightmare, affects Ingress NGINX controllers with a CVSS score of 9.8. This unauthenticated remote code execution flaw poses a severe risk to cloud infrastructure, with estimates suggesting over 40% of cloud environments are susceptible. Successful exploitation could lead to complete cluster takeover, granting attackers full control over Kubernetes clusters. Immediate patching is essential to prevent unauthorized access and potential data breaches. Organizations utilizing Ingress NGINX should prioritize updating to patched versions and review network segmentation to mitigate exposure. Given the high severity and widespread impact, security teams must treat this as a top priority for remediation to avoid catastrophic infrastructure compromise. Continuous monitoring for exploitation attempts is also recommended to ensure defense in depth against this significant threat vector affecting containerized environments globally.
Summary
Over 40% of cloud environments are vulnerable to RCE, likely leading to a complete cluster takeover.
Published Analysis
A critical vulnerability identified as CVE-2025-1974, dubbed IngressNightmare, affects Ingress NGINX controllers with a CVSS score of 9.8. This unauthenticated remote code execution flaw poses a severe risk to cloud infrastructure, with estimates suggesting over 40% of cloud environments are susceptible. Successful exploitation could lead to complete cluster takeover, granting attackers full control over Kubernetes clusters. Immediate patching is essential to prevent unauthorized access and potential data breaches. Organizations utilizing Ingress NGINX should prioritize updating to patched versions and review network segmentation to mitigate exposure. Given the high severity and widespread impact, security teams must treat this as a top priority for remediation to avoid catastrophic infrastructure compromise. Continuous monitoring for exploitation attempts is also recommended to ensure defense in depth against this significant threat vector affecting containerized environments globally. Over 40% of cloud environments are vulnerable to RCE, likely leading to a complete cluster takeover. Over 40% of cloud environments are vulnerable to RCE, likely leading to a complete cluster takeover.
Linked Entities
- CVE-2025-1974