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CVE-2026-3288 is a high-severity configuration injection vulnerability in the Kubernetes ingress-nginx NGINX Ingress Controller. The flaw affects processing of Ingress resources that use the nginx.ingress.kubernetes.io/rewrite-target annotation. The controller interpolates the user-controlled Ingress path value from spec.rules.http.paths.path into generated nginx configuration in buildProxyPass() without proper sanitization or escaping. By including a double-quote character in the path, an attacker can terminate the intended quoted regex context and inject arbitrary nginx directives into the generated configuration. The issue is related to incomplete remediation of a prior path injection flaw, where sanitization was added to buildLocation() but omitted from buildProxyPass(). Available reporting also indicates that built-in validation was insufficient because its blocklist did not cover all dangerous directives and intended path validation logic was not actually enforced. Successful exploitation can result in arbitrary code execution in the context of the ingress-nginx controller and disclosure of Kubernetes Secrets accessible to that controller.
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buildProxyPass() and address the configuration injection path.1 valid exploit after Mallory filtered fakes, detection scripts, and README-only repos (1 hidden).
This repository is a self-contained Docker lab and exploit kit for a simulated CVE-2026-3288 NGINX Ingress Controller configuration-injection issue. It is not tied to a common exploit framework. The repo contains 15 files: documentation (README.md, INSTALL.md, TESTING.md), Docker orchestration (docker-compose.yml), a vulnerable NGINX container and Flask backend, an automated Python exploit, a shell-based manual test harness, payload examples, a log-monitoring script, and a cleanup script. Core exploit logic is in exploits/exploit.py. The Python script uses requests.Session to target a base URL, first checking /health, then attempting six scenarios: response hijacking, Authorization header theft, phishing redirect injection, internal IP disclosure, cookie theft, and User-Agent reflection. Payloads are path strings containing an injected double quote followed by NGINX directives such as return 200 or return 302. Success criteria are simple response-content/status checks, making this an operational but basic exploit rather than a weaponized framework module. The vulnerable environment is implemented in docker/nginx/vulnerable-config.conf and docker/backend/app.py. NGINX listens on port 80 and is published to host port 9090. It proxies to an upstream named backend at backend:5000. The config intentionally simulates unsafe path handling around /api and /vuln, includes a /login location that reflects Authorization data via headers and proxying, an /admin path that can disclose an internal IP string, a /backend proxy path, and /health. The Flask backend exposes /, /health, /api/users, /api/data, /login, /admin, and /secret, with several endpoints returning sensitive-looking demo data and reflected headers. Fingerprintable infrastructure includes localhost-based lab URLs, backend:5000 as the upstream service, host ports 9090/9443, NGINX config/log file paths, and attacker redirect domains such as evil.com. The repository also includes detection/monitor-logs.sh, which tails docker-compose nginx logs and greps for suspicious injected directives like return, rewrite, set, add_header, and proxy_pass followed by quotes. Overall, the repository’s purpose is training and demonstration of web-based configuration injection leading to response manipulation and information disclosure, not stealthy post-exploitation or real RCE delivery.
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A configuration injection vulnerability in the NGINX Ingress Controller caused by improper sanitization of the Ingress path field in buildProxyPass(), allowing arbitrary nginx directive injection that can lead to remote code execution and secret disclosure.
A configuration injection vulnerability in the NGINX Ingress Controller that can allow arbitrary nginx directive injection via the Ingress path field, potentially leading to remote code execution and disclosure of secrets accessible to the controller.
A configuration-injection vulnerability in ingress-nginx where the rewrite-target Ingress annotation can be abused to inject nginx configuration, potentially leading to arbitrary code execution in the ingress-nginx controller context and disclosure of Kubernetes Secrets accessible to the controller.
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