CVE-2026-42959

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.

CVSS v3 7.5 HIGH

7.5^/10

CVSS v3 : HIGH

Vector :

Exploitability : 3.9 / Impact : 3.6

Attack Vector NETWORK

Attack Complexity LOW

Privileges Required NONE

User Interaction NONE

Confidentiality Impact NONE

Integrity Impact NONE

Availability Impact HIGH

Scope UNCHANGED

References

Link	Resource
https://www.nlnetlabs.nl/downloads/unbound/CVE-2026-42959.txt	Mitigation Vendor Advisory

Configurations

Configuration 1 (hide)

cpe:2.3:a:nlnetlabs:unbound:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*

History

20 May 2026, 22:51

Type	Values Removed	Values Added
CVSS	v2 : ~~unknown~~ v3 : ~~unknown~~	v2 : unknown v3 : 7.5
CPE		cpe:2.3:a:nlnetlabs:unbound::::::::
References	~~() https://www.nlnetlabs.nl/downloads/unbound/CVE-2026-42959.txt -~~	() https://www.nlnetlabs.nl/downloads/unbound/CVE-2026-42959.txt - Mitigation, Vendor Advisory
First Time		Nlnetlabs Nlnetlabs unbound

20 May 2026, 10:16

Type	Values Removed	Values Added
New CVE

Information

Published : 2026-05-20 10:16

Updated : 2026-05-20 22:51

NVD link : CVE-2026-42959

Mitre link : CVE-2026-42959

CVE.ORG link : CVE-2026-42959

JSON object : View

Products Affected

nlnetlabs

unbound

CWE

CWE-824

Access of Uninitialized Pointer

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