PublicCVE

CVE-2026-33278

CRITICAL9.1JSON exportCreate alert

Description

NLnet Labs Unbound 1.19.1 up to and including version 1.25.0 has a vulnerability in the DNSSEC validator that enables denial of service and possible remote code execution as a result of deep copying a data structure and erroneously overwriting a destination pointer. An adversary can exploit the vulnerability by controlling a malicious signed zone and querying a vulnerable Unbound. When DS sub-queries need to suspend validation due to NSEC3 computational budget exhaustion (introduced in Unbound 1.19.1), Unbound deep-copies response messages to preserve them across memory region teardown. A struct-assignment bug overwrites the destination's pointer with the source's pointer. After the sub-query region is freed, the resumed validator dereferences this dangling pointer, triggering a crash or potentially enabling arbitrary code execution. Unbound 1.25.1 contains a patch with a fix to preserve the correct pointer when deep copying the data structure.

CVSS breakdown

CVSS 4.0
Attack Vector
Network
Attack Complexity
Low
Attack Requirements
None
Privileges Required
None
User Interaction
None
Confidentiality (Vulnerable System)
High
Integrity (Vulnerable System)
High
Availability (Vulnerable System)
High
Confidentiality (Subsequent System)
High
Integrity (Subsequent System)
High
Availability (Subsequent System)
High
E
Unchanged
U
Red

Affected products