Attacker supplied '0.0.0.0'/'::' glue triggers defensive full-cache flush (NLnet Labs Unbound)

CVE-2026-50251
MEDIUM 5.3

At a glance

Source
NVD
EPSS
EPSS 0.25 % · percentile 17 ()
State
PUBLISHED
Published
Updated
Assigner
NLnet Labs
NVD status
Analyzed

Description

In NLnet Labs Unbound up to and including version 1.25.1, when 'unwanted-reply-threshold' is enabled (set to any value greater than zero), glue records of 0.0.0.0/::0 can short-circuit Unbound, on systems that can direct such traffic, by issuing DNS queries and receiving seemingly unwanted replies since the remote IP does not match the original source IP of 0.0.0.0/::0. This behavior keeps on looping for the glue records and pushing the counter to the configured 'unwanted-reply-threshold' that triggers a defensive cache clear. A malicious actor who controls a delegation that returns in-bailiwick glue of 0.0.0.0/::0 can drive the counter to the limit of 'unwanted-reply-threshold' to the threshold and trigger a cache clean of the message and rrset caches; at will, indefinitely, without sending a single spoofed packet. The iterator uses the 0.0.0.0/::0 glue, and a system that can route this (e.g., Linux kernel routes the datagram over loopback), Unbound's own listener answers from 127.0.0.1. Because of the mismatch of 0.0.0.0 and 127.0.0.1, in this example, Unbound accounts the reply as an unwanted (probably spoofed) answer. The counter resets to zero on every cache flush, so the attack loops forever.

Weaknesses (CWE)

  • CWE-184 — Incomplete List of Disallowed Inputs

References

Scores

VersionScoreVectorScored by
CVSS 3.1MEDIUM 5.3CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:LNLnet Labs
CVSS 3.1MEDIUM 5.3CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:LNVD · sep@nlnetlabs.nl (Secondary)

European references

Affected configurations (NVD CPE)

Affected products

ProductVersions
NLnet Labs · Unboundaffected 0 < 1.25.2

Sources

SourceLicence
CVE List (CVEProject cvelistV5)CVE Program Terms of Use
EPSS (FIRST.org)FIRST — attribution requested
ENISA EUVDENISA — reproduction authorised, source acknowledged
NVD (NIST) via fkie-cad/nvd-json-data-feedsPublic domain — this product uses data from the NVD API but is not endorsed or certified by the NVD