CVE-2026-56444

In NLnet Labs Unbound 1.20.0 up to and including 1.25.1, when Unbound is configured with 'serve-expired: yes' and 'serve-expired-client-timeout > discard-timeout > 0' (contrary to the suggested values), the discard-timeout branch during the serve expired logic drops an aged client reply without performing the correct accounting for the number of reply addresses for the query. Other identical branches outside of serve expired perform the correct decrement. Since the counter is never decremented in such scenario, it can reach the maximum limit and new clients for duplicate in-flight queries are silently dropped resulting in degradation of resolution service. A malicious actor can exploit the vulnerability by querying the resolver for a client-controlled slow-on-demand authoritative zone that can drive the counter past the threshold. Shipped defaults for 'serve-expired-client-timeout: 1800' and 'discard-timeout: 1900' make the branch unreachable.

CVSS v3 5.9 MEDIUM

5.9^/10

CVSS v3 : MEDIUM

Vector :

Exploitability : 2.2 / Impact : 3.6

Attack Vector NETWORK

Attack Complexity HIGH

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-2026-56444.txt	Vendor Advisory

Configurations

Configuration 1 (hide)

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

History

24 Jul 2026, 13:43

Type	Values Removed	Values Added
CPE		cpe:2.3:a:nlnetlabs:unbound::::::::
First Time		Nlnetlabs Nlnetlabs unbound
References	~~() https://www.nlnetlabs.nl/downloads/unbound/CVE-2026-56444.txt -~~	() https://www.nlnetlabs.nl/downloads/unbound/CVE-2026-56444.txt - Vendor Advisory

22 Jul 2026, 14:17

Type	Values Removed	Values Added
New CVE

Information

Published : 2026-07-22 14:17

Updated : 2026-07-24 13:43

NVD link : CVE-2026-56444

Mitre link : CVE-2026-56444

CVE.ORG link : CVE-2026-56444

JSON object : View

Products Affected

nlnetlabs

unbound

CWE

CWE-772

Missing Release of Resource after Effective Lifetime

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