# CVE-2026-94197: NGINX Ingress Controller vulnerability

> Attackers can bypass authentication in NGINX Ingress Controller by spoofing headers when ExternalAuth is enabled, gaining unauthorized access to protected paths.

- **Severity:** High 8.7 (`CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:N/VC:H/VI:N/VA:N/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N`)
- **Exploited in the wild:** Not known
- **Login needed:** Not needed
- **Attackable:** Over the internet
- **Victim action needed:** Not needed
- **Fix available:** No
- **Published:** 14 Oct 2026
- **Updated:** 15 Oct 2026
- **Also known as:** GHSA-5m5m-935w-8wj6

## What is CVE-2026-94197?

CVE-2026-94197 is a high-severity authentication bypass vulnerability in F5 NGINX Ingress Controller, published on 14 Oct 2026. An attacker can exploit it over the internet without logging in, with no action from the victim.

### Official description

An authentication and authorization bypass vulnerability exists in F5 NGINX Kubernetes Ingress Controller (NIC) when configured with the `ExternalAuth` policy or Ingress external authentication. Client-supplied X-Forwarded-Prefix, X-Forwarded-URI, X-Original-URI, and X-Forwarded-Method routing and method headers are forwarded unsanitized into the internal authentication subrequest (handled by the NGINX auth_request directive). As a result, an unauthenticated, remote attacker may spoof request attributes evaluated by the external authentication provider. 

Impact:
This vulnerability may allow remote attackers 

unauthenticated

 access to protected 

paths. There is no control plane exposure; this is a data plane issue only.

Note: Software versions which have reached End of Technical Support (EoTS) are not evaluated.

Weakness: CWE-290 (Authentication Bypass by Spoofing)

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2026-94197?


## How do I fix CVE-2026-94197?

No fix has been published for CVE-2026-94197 yet. Limit exposure of the affected software until one is available.

## Is CVE-2026-94197 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2026-94197 in the wild and no public exploit code.

## Fix prompt for AI coding agents

```text
Check this codebase for CVE-2026-94197 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2026-94197 is a high-severity authentication bypass vulnerability in F5 NGINX Ingress Controller, published on 14 Oct 2026. An attacker can exploit it over the internet without logging in, with no action from the victim.
Exploitation: There is no known exploitation of CVE-2026-94197 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Affected product: F5 NGINX Ingress Controller. No package-level version data is available, so check the vendor advisory linked from the reference page.

Task:
1. Search the dependency manifests and lockfiles (for example package.json, package-lock.json, requirements.txt, poetry.lock, uv.lock, pom.xml, build.gradle, go.mod, Cargo.lock, Gemfile.lock) and any Dockerfiles for the affected packages, including transitive dependencies.
2. If an affected version is in use, upgrade it to the fixed version for its release line with the project's package manager, so the lockfile is regenerated. Prefer the smallest upgrade that fixes it.
3. If there is no fix, or the upgrade would break the build, do not guess: explain the risk and the safest workaround instead.
4. Run the tests and summarise what changed and why.
5. If nothing in the project is affected, say so and change nothing.

Reference: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-94197/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-94197/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2026-94197
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-94197
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2026-94197

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-94197/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.