CVE-2026-82399

CoreDNS: Unauthenticated memory exhaustion in custom transports

Published Sep 16, 2026 CVSS 3.1 · 7.5 High EPSS < 1% KEV · Not listed
Description
CoreDNS is a DNS server written in Go. Prior to 1.14.7, the DNS-over-HTTPS, DNS-over-HTTP/3, DNS-over-QUIC, and DNS-over-gRPC request paths in plugin/pkg/doh/doh.go, core/dnsserver/server_quic.go, and core/dnsserver/server_grpc.go call dns.Msg.Unpack on attacker-controlled DNS section counts before dns.DefaultMsgAcceptFunc validates the fixed header. An unauthenticated client can use DNS name compression and excessive section counts to amplify allocation before the plugin chain, so plugin-level rate limiting cannot prevent concurrent requests from exhausting memory and terminating CoreDNS. The ordinary UDP and TCP listeners are not affected because they validate the header first. This issue is fixed in version 1.14.7.

Remediation

No solution or workaround provided in the CVE record

Tracking

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Advisories

Source ID Title
Github GHSA Github GHSA GHSA-mrg3-qvqr-jw29 CoreDNS: Unauthenticated memory exhaustion in custom transports
History
Type Values Removed Values Added
First Time appeared Coredns.io
Coredns.io coredns
Vendors & Products Coredns.io
Coredns.io coredns
Type Values Removed Values Added
Metrics ssvc

{'options': {'Automatable': 'yes', 'Exploitation': 'poc', 'Technical Impact': 'partial'}, 'version': '2.0.3'}

Type Values Removed Values Added
Description CoreDNS is a DNS server written in Go. Prior to 1.14.7, the DNS-over-HTTPS, DNS-over-HTTP/3, DNS-over-QUIC, and DNS-over-gRPC request paths in plugin/pkg/doh/doh.go, core/dnsserver/server_quic.go, and core/dnsserver/server_grpc.go call dns.Msg.Unpack on attacker-controlled DNS section counts before dns.DefaultMsgAcceptFunc validates the fixed header. An unauthenticated client can use DNS name compression and excessive section counts to amplify allocation before the plugin chain, so plugin-level rate limiting cannot prevent concurrent requests from exhausting memory and terminating CoreDNS. The ordinary UDP and TCP listeners are not affected because they validate the header first. This issue is fixed in version 1.14.7.
Title CoreDNS: Unauthenticated memory exhaustion in custom transports
Weaknesses CWE-770
References
Metrics cvssV3_1

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

Weaknesses

Sources

Status
PUBLISHED
Assigner
GitHub_M
Published
Updated
Sep 18, 2026, 6:19 PM
Reserved
Aug 28, 2026, 10:00 PM
Status
Awaiting Analysis
Published
Sep 16, 2026, 7:17 PM
Modified
Sep 24, 2026, 9:16 PM
Severity
Important
Public date
Sep 16, 2026, 6:37 PM