CVEvulnerability

CVE-2026-42959

8.7 HIGH Published 2026-05-20 Modified 2026-09-01 Official page ↗
Status
Modified
Published
2026-05-20
Last modified
2026-09-01
Assigner
[email protected]
CVSS 4.0 ([email protected])
8.7 HIGH — CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/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:Red
CVSS 3.1 ([email protected])
7.5 HIGH — CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
CVSS 3.1 (0b0ca135-0b70-47e7-9f44-1890c2a1c46c)
7.5 HIGH — CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
Weaknesses
CWE-824

Description

NLnet Labs Unbound up to and including version 1.25.0 has a denial of service vulnerability in the DNSSEC validator that can lead to a crash given malicious upstream replies. When Unbound constructs chase-reply messages for validation, the code uses the wrong counter to calculate write offsets for ADDITIONAL section rrsets. DNAME duplication could increase the ANSWER section count and authority filtering could decrease the AUTHORITY section count and create an uninitialized array slot. Combining these two, the validator later dereferences this uninitialized pointer, causing an immediate process crash. An adversary controlling a DNSSEC-signed domain can trigger this bug with a single query by configuring a DNAME chain with unsigned CNAMEs and a response containing unsigned AUTHORITY records alongside signed ADDITIONAL glue records. Unbound 1.25.1 contains a patch with a fix to use the proper counters to calculate the write offsets.

Affected configurations

• nlnetlabs unbound (< 1.25.1)

Related

Weakness · CWE (1)

  • CWE-824 Access of Uninitialized Pointer weakness

References