# CVE-2025-1974: ingress-nginx admission controller RCE escalation

- Exploited (CISA KEV): no
- Published: 2025-03-24
- CVSS: 9.8 CRITICAL (v3.1)
- EPSS: 99.4% (100th percentile)
- CWE: CWE-653

A security issue was discovered in Kubernetes where under certain conditions, an unauthenticated attacker with access to the pod network can achieve arbitrary code execution in the context of the ingress-nginx controller. This can lead to disclosure of Secrets accessible to the controller. (Note that in the default installation, the controller can access all Secrets cluster-wide.)

## Edge WAF coverage (claimed by vendors, not measured)

| Vendor | Status | First rule | Days after publication |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cloudflare | Rule off by default | 2025-08-11 | 140 |
| AWS | No public claim | — | — |
| Microsoft Azure | No public claim | — | — |
| Google Cloud | No public claim | — | — |
| Fastly | Before feed history | — | — |
| F5 | Rule published | 2025-04-28 | 35 |
| Akamai | No public source | — | — |
| OWASP CRS | No public claim | — | — |

### Cloudflare

- 2025-08-11 · new · rule ed759f7e44184fa398ef71785d8102e1 · default Disabled
  > Ingress-Nginx - Remote Code Execution - CVE:CVE-2025-1974. Previous action: Log. New action: Disabled. This is a New Detection
  Source: https://developers.cloudflare.com/changelog/post/2025-08-11-waf-release/

### F5

- 2025-04-28 · new · rule 200103569
  > Added: signature 200103569 "Kubernetes NGINX Ingress Admission Controller Command Execution" (Command Execution, risk High), systems: Nginx. References: CVE-2025-1097, CVE-2025-1098, CVE-2025-1974, CVE-2025-24514.
  Source: https://docs.cloud.f5.com/docs-v2/platform/changelogs/security-details-changelog
- 2025-05-22 · new · rule 200103569
  > Added: signature 200103569 "Kubernetes NGINX Ingress Admission Controller Command Execution" (Command Execution, risk High), systems: Nginx. References: CVE-2025-1097, CVE-2025-1098, CVE-2025-1974, CVE-2025-24514.
  Source: https://docs.cloud.f5.com/docs-v2/platform/changelogs/security-details-changelog

## Our test (measured)

- OWASP Core Rule Set 4.25.0, paranoia level 1, anomaly threshold 5, default CRS settings: passed (0 of 1 requests blocked), template CVE-2025-1974, 2026-11-02
- OWASP Core Rule Set 4.25.0, paranoia level 2, anomaly threshold 5, default CRS settings: blocked (1 of 1 requests blocked), template CVE-2025-1974, 2026-11-02

## Social

2 posts seen since 2026-11-02.

- x 2026-11-02: CVE-2025-1974 (CVSS 9.8) de ingress-nginx no es nueva, pero sigue crítica: RCE sin credenciales, acceso a Secrets del clúster y exploits públicos.  ✅ ¿Versión 1.11.5, 1.12.1 o superior? ✅ ¿Webhook accesible solo desde el API Server?  https://t.co/W5mWKMxQlG  #Kubernetes #GooIng (https://x.com/gooinguy/status/2117359339975442771)
- x 2026-11-02: CVE-2025-1974 (CVSS 9.8) de ingress-nginx no es nueva, pero sigue siendo crítica: RCE sin credenciales y acceso a los Secrets del clúster.  ✅ ¿Versión 1.12.1, 1.11.5, 1.10.7 o superior? ✅ ¿Webhook accesible solo desde el API Server?  https://t.co/W5mWKMxQlG  #Kubernetes #GooIng (https://x.com/gooinguy/status/2117356560116527598)

"No public claim" means no vendor statement names this CVE; "Before feed history" means the CVE is older than the vendor feed. In both cases generic rules may still block it.

HTML: https://cve.vigilbase.com/cve/CVE-2025-1974 · JSON: https://cve.vigilbase.com/api/v1/cves/CVE-2025-1974