'serve-expired-client-timeout' and 'response-ip' CNAME redirect could lead to a crash (NLnet Labs Unbound)

CVE-2026-55717
MEDIUM 5.9

At a glance

Source
NVD
EPSS
EPSS 0.24 % Β· percentile 15 ()
State
PUBLISHED
Published
Updated
Assigner
NLnet Labs
NVD status
Analyzed

Description

In NLnet Labs Unbound 1.10.0 up to and including 1.25.1, when 'serve-expired: yes' is set together with a 'response-ip: <net> redirect' /'response-ip-data: <net> CNAME <target>' rule (or the RPZ 'rpz-cname-override' equivalent), a remote client who controls any delegated domain can crash the daemon. The serve-expired-client-timeout callback runs a two-pass loop to chase the respip-generated CNAME alias; on the second pass it resets 'alias_rrset' but not 'partial_rep'. Later, this inconsistency leads to a NULL pointer dereference and an eventual crash. A malicious actor can exploit the vulnerability by controlling any zone that replies with an A/AAAA record that falls inside the configured response-ip/rpz subnet. By delaying the answer when the previous record has expired, the vulnerable path of 'serve-expired-client-timeout' is taken leading to denial of service via the server crash.

Weaknesses (CWE)

  • CWE-476 β€” NULL Pointer Dereference

References

Scores

VersionScoreVectorScored by
CVSS 3.1MEDIUM 5.9CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:HNLnet Labs
CVSS 3.1MEDIUM 5.9CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:HNVD Β· sep@nlnetlabs.nl (Secondary)

European references

Affected configurations (NVD CPE)

Affected products

ProductVersions
NLnet Labs Β· Unboundaffected 1.10.0 < 1.25.2

Sources

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