Cyber Resilience

CVE-2023-5044

HighRCE

Published: 25 October 2023

Published
25 October 2023
Modified
13 February 2025
KEV Added
Patch
CVSS Score v3.1 7.6 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:L/A:L
EPSS Score 0.0894 92.8th percentile
Risk Priority 21 60% EPSS · 20% KEV · 20% CVSS

Summary

CVE-2023-5044 is a high-severity Improper Input Validation (CWE-20) vulnerability in Kubernetes Ingress-Nginx. Its CVSS base score is 7.6 (High).

Operationally, ranked in the top 7.2% of CVEs by exploit likelihood; it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.

Deeper analysis

The vulnerability CVE-2023-5044 is a code injection issue (CWE-94) resulting from improper input validation (CWE-20) via the nginx.ingress.kubernetes.io/permanent-redirect annotation. It affects the ingress-nginx controller component in Kubernetes environments and carries a CVSS 3.1 score of 7.6.

An authenticated attacker with low-privileged network access can supply a malicious annotation value on an Ingress resource to inject and execute arbitrary code. Successful exploitation can disclose sensitive data with high impact while producing limited integrity and availability effects.

Advisories published by the Kubernetes project, along with related notices from NetApp and oss-security lists, direct administrators to apply updates that address the annotation handling flaw; the referenced GitHub issue and security announcement contain the specific patch and configuration recommendations.

The associated EPSS score rose from lower values to a peak of 0.1061 before receding to the current 0.0894, indicating modest post-disclosure interest that has since declined.

EU & UK References

Vulnerability details

Code injection via nginx.ingress.kubernetes.io/permanent-redirect annotation.

CWE(s)

Related Threats

No named actor attribution yet. ATT&CK technique mapping in progress for this CVE.

Affected Assets

kubernetes
ingress-nginx
≤ 1.9.0

Mitigating Controls

Likely Mitigating Controls AI

Per-CVE control mapping for this CVE has not run yet; the list below is derived from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry.

addresses: CWE-20 CWE-94

Directly implements checks on information inputs to reject invalid data before processing.

addresses: CWE-20

Security testing and developer training directly verify and enforce proper input validation, reducing exploitability of injection and malformed-data weaknesses.

addresses: CWE-20

Security testing and evaluation at multiple SDLC stages directly detects missing or flawed input validation, with the required remediation process ensuring fixes are applied.

addresses: CWE-94

Makes persistent code injection into loaded programs impossible when the executable image itself resides on hardware-protected read-only media.

addresses: CWE-94

Dynamically generated code can be produced and executed inside the isolated chamber, preventing host compromise from code-injection payloads.

addresses: CWE-94

Directly prevents execution of attacker-supplied code written into data memory regions.

addresses: CWE-20

Spam protection mechanisms perform filtering and detection on inbound/outbound messages, directly compensating for missing or weak input validation of unsolicited content.

References