Resource Allocation Without LimitsWeakness · CWE-770

CVE-2026-24514

MEDIUM · 6.5 CVSS v3.1 Published 2026-02-03
Mitigation only
No fix yet — a mitigation exists. There is no fixed release. A documented workaround reduces exposure in the meantime.
See remediation →
71/100
Remediation priority · Elevated
Remotely reachable Zero-click

Official description Straight from the sourceThe vendor's or NVD's own wording, published unedited. Authoritative, but often terse — it says what broke, rarely what to do.

NVD · unedited
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.

Technical summary Written by usOur analysis, written from the advisory, the CVSS vector and the affected-version data. It adds context the advisory leaves out, and never invents facts that are not in the source.

dbcve analysis · moderate confidence

The ingress-nginx validating admission controller lacks proper request size limits, allowing attackers to send large requests that cause excessive memory consumption. This memory exhaustion leads to denial of service as the controller pod is killed or the node runs out of memory.

MitigationImplement request body size limits and configure appropriate memory limits on the ingress-nginx controller pods to prevent unbounded memory consumption from large admission requests.

Verify against the referenced sources before acting — the references below are authoritative for this CVE, this summary is not.

CVSS breakdown How the score is builtThe industry scoring standard. It rates how the flaw is reached, what it takes to exploit, and what an attacker gains — the score is derived from those, not the other way round.

From the vector
Attack vector
Network
Complexity
Low
Privileges
Low
User interaction
None
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality
None
Integrity
None
Availability
High

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

Am I affected? How to checkSteps we derive from the advisory and the affected-version data, so you can decide whether this CVE reaches your setup. They are a guide, not a scan — your own configuration is the authority.

dbcve checks

Work through these to decide whether this CVE applies to you.

  1. Verify ingress-nginx controller is deployed
    Run 'kubectl get pods -n <ingress-namespace>' and look for ingress-nginx controller pods, or check for ingressClass resources with 'kubectl get ingressclass'
    Affected if No ingress-nginx controller is installed, this CVE does not apply
  2. Check ingress-nginx version
    Run 'kubectl get deployment -n <ingress-namespace> <ingress-controller-name> -o jsonpath="{.spec.template.spec.containers[0].image}"' and compare the version to known vulnerable versions
    Affected if Running a version without request size limit enforcement in the admission controller
  3. Verify admission webhook is enabled
    Check for ValidatingWebhookConfiguration with 'kubectl get validatingwebhookconfiguration' and look for ingress-nginx admission webhooks
    Affected if The admission webhook is not present, the vulnerability path does not exist
  4. Check for proxy body size limit annotation
    Run 'kubectl get ingressclass <ingress-class-name> -o jsonpath={.metadata.annotations}' or check Ingress resources for 'nginx.ingress.kubernetes.io/proxy-body-size' annotation
    Affected if No proxy-body-size limit is configured on any Ingress, allowing unbounded request sizes
  5. Verify memory limits on controller pods
    Run 'kubectl get deployment -n <ingress-namespace> <ingress-controller-name> -o jsonpath="{.spec.template.spec.containers[0].resources.limits.memory}"'
    Affected if No memory limits are set, or limits are excessively high allowing unbounded memory growth

Environment is affected if ingress-nginx admission controller is deployed without request body size limits configured and without memory limits on the controller pods.

Generated from the published advisory. Verify against your own configuration.

Check your environment

Paste your version and any relevant configuration and it will be compared against the affected criteria above. Do not include secrets or credentials.

AI-assisted, checked against the advisory. Informational, not a guarantee.

Remediation Closing itWhat it takes to close this. Where a vendor fix exists we point at it; where none exists we say so plainly, and can build one. Effort estimates are scoped from the advisory, not from your codebase.

From vendor data
Mitigation available No clean upgrade yet — mitigate in the meantime
Mitigation

Implement request body size limits and configure appropriate memory limits on the ingress-nginx controller pods to prevent unbounded memory consumption from large admission requests.

Have this fixed Scoped from the published advisory
  • Consultation2.0 h
  • Implementation4.0 h
  • Testing3.0 h
  • Review / QA1.0 h
10.0 hours of engineering $1,750
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References Go to the primary sourcePrimary sources — vendor advisories, patches and trackers. Where our summary and a reference disagree, the reference wins.

Primary sources

Practitioner notes

Contributed

Peer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-2026-24514 in production — separate from our analysis above.

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What this is

A place for practitioners to share what actually worked: a mitigation you’ve tested, a configuration change, a version- or environment-specific caveat, or a link to a verified patch. The most useful notes rise to the top as peers upvote them, so the signal stays high.

What belongs here
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  • Version or environment caveats, and links to real fixes
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