CVE-2026-44690

Cross-zone wildcard cache poisoning via RRSIG.labels manipulation

Published Jul 22, 2026 CVSS 3.1 · 7.5 High EPSS < 1% KEV · Not listed
Description
In NLnet Labs Unbound 1.7.0 up to and including 1.25.1, insufficient validation of the RRSIG.Labels field combined with premature cache writes during RFC 8198 aggressive NSEC processing leads to cache poisoning that permits a malicious actor controlling a single delegated zone to poison arbitrary sibling zones under NSEC-signed parent domains. A malicious actor with one registered domain under an NSEC-signed TLD can serve malicious insecure DNS responses for unrelated sibling domains (sharing the same parent zone). Arbitrary delegations that do not exist under the parent domain and are covered by the parent's NSEC chain can be brought into insecure existence by fraudulent wildcard DS records (less labels than expected, unknown algorithm) from the malicious sibling domain. This allows the malicious actor to inject insecure wildcard records for those delegations.

Remediation

Vendor Solution

This issue is fixed starting with version 1.25.2

Tracking

Sign in to view the affected projects.

Advisories

Source ID Title
Debian DSA Debian DSA DSA-6507-1 unbound security update
Ubuntu USN Ubuntu USN USN-8946-1 Unbound vulnerabilities
Ubuntu USN Ubuntu USN USN-8946-2 Unbound vulnerabilities
History
Type Values Removed Values Added
First Time appeared Redhat
Redhat hummingbird
CPEs cpe:/a:redhat:hummingbird:1
Vendors & Products Redhat
Redhat hummingbird
References
Metrics threat_severity

None

threat_severity

Important

Type Values Removed Values Added
First Time appeared Nlnetlabs
Nlnetlabs unbound
Vendors & Products Nlnetlabs
Nlnetlabs unbound
Type Values Removed Values Added
Metrics ssvc

{'options': {'Automatable': 'yes', 'Exploitation': 'none', 'Technical Impact': 'partial'}, 'version': '2.0.3'}

Type Values Removed Values Added
Description In NLnet Labs Unbound 1.7.0 up to and including 1.25.1, insufficient validation of the RRSIG.Labels field combined with premature cache writes during RFC 8198 aggressive NSEC processing leads to cache poisoning that permits a malicious actor controlling a single delegated zone to poison arbitrary sibling zones under NSEC-signed parent domains. A malicious actor with one registered domain under an NSEC-signed TLD can serve malicious insecure DNS responses for unrelated sibling domains (sharing the same parent zone). Arbitrary delegations that do not exist under the parent domain and are covered by the parent's NSEC chain can be brought into insecure existence by fraudulent wildcard DS records (less labels than expected, unknown algorithm) from the malicious sibling domain. This allows the malicious actor to inject insecure wildcard records for those delegations.
Title Cross-zone wildcard cache poisoning via RRSIG.labels manipulation
Weaknesses CWE-345
References
Metrics cvssV3_1

{'score': 7.5, 'vector': 'CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:H/A:N'}

Weaknesses

Sources

Status
PUBLISHED
Assigner
NLnet Labs
Published
Updated
Jul 22, 2026, 6:56 PM
Reserved
Jun 22, 2026, 12:35 PM
Status
Analyzed
Published
Jul 22, 2026, 2:17 PM
Modified
Oct 24, 2026, 1:10 PM
Severity
Important
Public date
Jul 22, 2026, 12:00 AM