How severe is CVE-2023-5043?

CVE-2023-5043 has a CVSS score of 7.6/10, rated HIGH. Immediate patching is strongly recommended.

Which packages are affected by CVE-2023-5043?

CVE-2023-5043 affects the following packages: k8s.io/ingress-nginx (Go). Ecosystems affected: Go.

How do I fix CVE-2023-5043?

Update k8s.io/ingress-nginx to 1.9.0 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2023-5043 is resolved across your whole dependency graph.

How do I detect CVE-2023-5043 in my Go dependencies?

Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for k8s.io/ingress-nginx, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.

How do I mitigate CVE-2023-5043 if there is no patch (or I can't update yet)?

If you can't upgrade right away: gate or disable the affected feature, validate untrusted input at the boundary, and avoid passing attacker-controlled data into the vulnerable path. O3's runtime protection blocks exploitation in production as an interim safeguard until the upgrade lands.

Is CVE-2023-5043 actively exploited in the wild?

No public exploit code has been indexed for CVE-2023-5043 yet. This does not mean the vulnerability cannot be exploited — absence of public exploits does not imply safety. Apply the recommended fix and use O3 Security to monitor your exposure.

What is the EPSS score for CVE-2023-5043?

CVE-2023-5043 has an EPSS (Exploit Prediction Scoring System) score of 2.6%, placing it in the 85th percentile of all CVEs. EPSS is maintained by FIRST.org and estimates the probability that a vulnerability will be exploited in the wild within the next 30 days. This score indicates relatively lower exploitation probability, though the CVSS severity should still guide your patching priority.

What type of vulnerability is CVE-2023-5043?

CVE-2023-5043 is classified as Improper Input Validation (CWE-20), CWE-74 (CWE-74). These weakness types describe the underlying flaw category, which helps determine the potential impact and the right class of mitigation.

When was CVE-2023-5043 published, and has it been updated?

CVE-2023-5043 was published on October 25, 2023 and was last updated on October 21, 2026. Advisory data evolves as severity scores, affected ranges, and exploit intelligence are revised — always check the latest version of the advisory before acting.

🐹

🐹 Go

Not in CISA KEV

HIGH severity

CVE-2023-5043 — ingress-nginx

HIGH

CVE-2023-5043 is a high-severity (CVSS 7.6) Improper Input Validation vulnerability in k8s.io/ingress-nginx. A fix is available for k8s.io/ingress-nginx — see the affected versions and patch details below.

Ingress nginx annotation injection causes arbitrary command execution

Also known asGHSA-5wj4-wffq-3378

Published

Oct 25, 2023

Updated

Oct 21, 2026

Affected

1 pkg

Patched

1 / 1

Exploits

None indexed

Exploitation data as of Oct 26, 2026 · OSV.dev, NVD, FIRST.org (EPSS)

EPSS Exploitation Probability

via FIRST.org ↗

2.6%probability of exploitation in next 30 days

Lower Risk+0.40%

Lower risk than most CVEs85th percentile — riskier than 85% of all scored CVEsHighest risk

Probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, from FIRST.org EPSS.

How urgent is this, really

Where this sits among everything scored

Real-World Exposure

1 pkg affected

🐹k8s.io/ingress-nginx

Real-time download stats are indexed for npm and PyPI packages. This vulnerability affects Go packages — download data is not available via public APIs for these ecosystems.

Description

Issue Details

A security issue was identified in ingress-nginx where the nginx.ingress.kubernetes.io/configuration-snippet annotation on an Ingress object (in the networking.k8s.io or extensions API group) can be used to inject arbitrary commands, and obtain the credentials of the ingress-nginx controller. In the default configuration, that credential has access to all secrets in the cluster.

This issue has been rated High (CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:L/A:L), and assigned CVE-2023-5043.

Affected Components and Configurations

This bug affects ingress-nginx. If you do not have ingress-nginx installed on your cluster, you are not affected. You can check this by running kubectl get po -n ingress-nginx.

If you are running the “chrooted” ingress-nginx controller introduced in v1.2.0 (gcr.io/k8s-staging-ingress-nginx/controller-chroot), command execution is possible but credential extraction is not, so the High severity does not apply.

Multi-tenant environments where non-admin users have permissions to create Ingress objects are most affected by this issue.

Affected Versions

<v1.9.0

Versions allowing mitigation

v1.9.0

Mitigation

Ingress Administrators should set the --enable-annotation-validation flag to enforce restrictions on the contents of ingress-nginx annotation fields.

Detection

If you find evidence that this vulnerability has been exploited, please contact [email protected]

Additional Details

See ingress-nginx Issue #10571 for more details.

Acknowledgements

This vulnerability was reported by suanve

Thank You, CJ Cullen on behalf of the Kubernetes Security Response Committee

Affected Packages

1 total 1 fixed

Ecosystem	Package	Vulnerable range	Fix
🐹Go	`k8s.io/ingress-nginx`	all versions	1.9.0`go get k8s.io/ingress-nginx@v1.9.0`

Affected Products

1 product · 1 configurations

Application

ingress-nginxkubernetes

< 1.9.0

range

Detection & mitigation playbook

Open-source dependency

Detect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for k8s.io/ingress-nginx, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update k8s.io/ingress-nginx to 1.9.0 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2023-5043 is resolved across your whole dependency graph.
Workarounds
If you can't upgrade right away: gate or disable the affected feature, validate untrusted input at the boundary, and avoid passing attacker-controlled data into the vulnerable path. O3's runtime protection blocks exploitation in production as an interim safeguard until the upgrade lands.

Frequently Asked Questions

### Issue Details A security issue was identified in ingress-nginx where the nginx.ingress.kubernetes.io/configuration-snippet annotation on an Ingress object (in the networking.k8s.io or extensions API group) can be used to inject arbitrary commands, and obtain the credentials of the ingress-nginx controller. In the default configuration, that credential has access to all secrets in the cluster. This issue has been rated High (CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:L/A:L), and assigned CVE-2023-5043. ### Affected Components and Configurations This bug affects ingress-nginx. If you do not ha

O3 Security · Impact-Aware SCA

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Find it across Go, including transitive dependencies.

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CVSS Score

7.6/10CVSS v3 base

Vector breakdown

Attack Vector

Network

Attack Complexity

Low

Privileges Required

Low

User Interaction

None

Scope

Unchanged

Confidentiality

High

Integrity

Low

Availability

Low

Raw vector

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

CWE Classification

CWE-20Improper Input Validation CWE-74CWE-74

Weaponization

No Nuclei template, Metasploit module or public proof-of-concept found.

Timeline

Disclosed

Oct 25, 2023

Last updated

Oct 21, 2026

Identifiers

CVE-2023-5043

GHSA-5wj4-wffq-3378

References

Advisorygithub.com · CVE 2023 5043.json Advisorynvd.nist.gov · CVE 2023 5043 Advisorysecurity.netapp.com · ntap 20240307 0012 Reportgithub.com Articlegroups.google.com · pVsXsOpxYZo Webopenwall.com Websecurity.netapp.com · ntap 20240307 0012 Packagegithub.com · ingress nginx

Related vulnerabilities

This CVE is high severity; 5 of 8 other CVEs affecting ingress-nginx are rated as high or higher (top: high).

CVE-2026-4342CVE-2026-24514CVE-2026-24513CVE-2026-1580CVE-2026-24512CVE-2025-24513CVE-2025-1097CVE-2025-24514

Provenance

Sources

OSV.devNVDFIRST.org (EPSS)

Last verifiedOct 21, 2026