CVE-2026-55973

In NLnet Labs Unbound 1.23.0 up to and including 1.25.1, when 'dns-error-reporting: yes' is set, the EDNS Report-Channel option (code 18) from the last upstream response is read and uses the option's length as the length of the agent domain. When a domain name check is performed on the agent domain, the returned lenght is not used and if the agent domain is followed by garbage, those bytes are moved onto the tail of the synthetic '_er.' report query name. That query name is later used in the iterator via a subquery to send out the DNS Error Report and when Unbound tries to walk that query name during 'find_closest_of_type()', it strips labels using the query name length rather than stopping at the embedded root, walks one byte past it, and feeds the first garbage byte to 'dname_query_hash()' as a label length writing over the stack variable 'labuf'. One ordinary upstream response from a delegated zone the attacker controls is sufficient to terminate the daemon.

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-2026-55973.txt	Vendor Advisory

Configurations

Configuration 1 (hide)

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

History

24 Jul 2026, 14:24

Type	Values Removed	Values Added
References	~~() https://www.nlnetlabs.nl/downloads/unbound/CVE-2026-55973.txt -~~	() https://www.nlnetlabs.nl/downloads/unbound/CVE-2026-55973.txt - Vendor Advisory
CPE		cpe:2.3:a:nlnetlabs:unbound::::::::
First Time		Nlnetlabs Nlnetlabs unbound

22 Jul 2026, 14:17

Type	Values Removed	Values Added
New CVE

Information

Published : 2026-07-22 14:17

Updated : 2026-07-24 14:24

NVD link : CVE-2026-55973

Mitre link : CVE-2026-55973

CVE.ORG link : CVE-2026-55973

JSON object : View

Products Affected

nlnetlabs

unbound

CWE

CWE-20

Improper Input Validation

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