Cyber Resilience

CVE-2026-52865

Memory Safety in F5 Nginx Ingress Controller 3.5.0 – 3.7.2

Published
15 July 2026
Modified
16 July 2026
Patch / advisory
CVSS Score v4 7.1
Click a component to see what it means
Raw vectorCVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:L/UI:N/VC:N/VI:N/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N/E:X/CR:X/IR:X/AR:X/MAV:X/MAC:X/MAT:X/MPR:X/MUI:X/MVC:X/MVI:X/MVA:X/MSC:X/MSI:X/MSA:X/S:X/AU:X/R:X/V:X/RE:X/U:X
EPSS Score 0.0029 21th percentile
Risk Priority 35 floored blend · peak EPSS

Summary

CVE-2026-52865 is a high-severity NULL Pointer Dereference (CWE-476) vulnerability in F5 Nginx Ingress Controller. Its CVSS base score is 7.1 (High).

Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique Endpoint Denial of Service (T1499); ranked at the 21th percentile by exploit likelihood (below the median); it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.

The strongest mitigations our analysis identified map to SA-11 (Developer Testing and Evaluation) and SA-15 (Development Process, Standards, and Tools) — see the control section below for these in your framework.

OWASP Top 10 for Web (2025)

EU & UK References

Vulnerability Data

When NGINX Ingress Controller processes Ingress or TransportServer resources, an authenticated, remote attacker with permission to create or modify Ingress or TransportServer resources can cause the NGINX Ingress Controller process to terminate. Impact: The NGINX Ingress Controller control plane process…

more

terminates and enters a persistent crash loop while the malformed Ingress or TransportServer resource remains in the cluster. This vulnerability allows a remote, authenticated attacker with at least Ingress or TransportServer resource write access to cause a denial-of-service (DoS) on the NGINX Ingress Controller system. There is no data plane exposure; this is a control plane issue only. Note: Software versions which have reached End of Technical Support (EoTS) are not evaluated.

CWE(s)

Related Threats

MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise Techniques

T1499 Endpoint Denial of Service Impact
Adversaries may perform Endpoint Denial of Service (DoS) attacks to degrade or block the availability of services to users.
T1499.004 Application or System Exploitation Impact
Adversaries may exploit software vulnerabilities that can cause an application or system to crash and deny availability to users.
T1489 Service Stop Impact
Adversaries may stop or disable services on a system to render those services unavailable to legitimate users.
Derived from this CVE’s CWE(s) via the direct CWE→ATT&CK cross-walk.

CVEs Like This One

CVE-2025-41433Same vendor: F5
CVE-2025-20045Same vendor: F5
CVE-2024-25560Same vendor: F5
CVE-2025-52585Same vendor: F5
CVE-2025-61960Same vendor: F5
CVE-2023-22341Same vendor: F5
CVE-2023-22839Same vendor: F5
CVE-2024-23308Same vendor: F5
CVE-2024-41164Same vendor: F5
CVE-2024-24775Same vendor: F5

Affected Assets

f5
nginx ingress controller
3.5.0 — 3.7.2 · 4.0.0 — 4.0.1 · 5.0.0 — 5.5.2

Mitigating Controls

Mitigating Controls (NIST 800-53 r5) AI

Developer testing and evaluation (including static analysis) directly finds null-dereference bugs before deployment.

Documented development standards and tools can enforce null-safety rules and safe pointer usage.

Engineering principles can mandate defensive coding such as explicit null checks before dereference.

Mitigating Controls (NIST CSF 2.0) AI

Derived directly from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry via our AI-authored CWE→CSF cross-walk (authority under review) — links open the control.

PR.PS-06 mostly match
prevents

Secure SDLC practices (static analysis, code review, safe coding standards) directly prevent NULL dereference bugs during development.

Mitigating Controls (ISO/IEC 27001:2022 Annex A) AI

Derived directly from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry via our AI-authored CWE→ISO cross-walk (authority under review) — links open the control.

finds

Security testing can detect NULL dereference defects before release.

prevents

Secure SDLC mandates defensive coding practices that can prevent NULL dereferences.

prevents

Application security requirements can specify input validation and pointer-safety rules.

prevents

Secure architecture principles encourage defensive design that avoids unsafe pointer use.

prevents

Secure coding standards directly require NULL-pointer checks and safe dereference patterns.

References