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Fencer Vulns
medium 5.9

CVE-2026-55990 json

Packet of death for a DNSCrypt misconfigured Unbound

published 2026-07-22 3 mo ago modified 2026-10-24 16 d ago also EUVD-2026-47682

cvss
5.9
version 3.1, CNA
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
0.2%
EPSS 0.2% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 16%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

In NLnet Labs Unbound 1.7.0 up to and including 1.25.1, when the 'dnscrypt:' clause lists more 'dnscrypt-provider-cert:' files than there are matching 'dnscrypt-secret-key:' files, Unbound fills only the matched prefix and leaves the tail slots at the '0xdb' fill that libsodium's allocator writes into every allocation. Unbound would then iterate over the number of cert files, not the actual slots, so it walks into a slot with garbage data filled with '0xdb' bytes. Any unauthenticated client that sends one UDP datagram of ≥ 68 bytes whose first 8 bytes are '0xdb' to 'dnscrypt-port' will use that garbage entry which leads to a garbage dereference killing the server. This is a silent faulty configuration that goes unnoticed until triggered with the right client query. Unbound needs to be compiled with DNSCrypt support ('--enable-dnscrypt').

Patch / fix

  • NLnet Labs Unbound 1.25.2
  • unbound Debian 13 1.26.1-0+deb13u1
  • unbound Debian 14 1.25.2-1

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2026-55990

  • unbound hummingbird 1 1.25.2-0.1.hum1
  • unbound-libs hummingbird 1 1.25.2-0.1.hum1
  • unbound-munin hummingbird 1 1.25.2-0.1.hum1
  • unbound-utils hummingbird 1 1.25.2-0.1.hum1
  • unbound-anchor hummingbird 1 1.25.2-0.1.hum1
  • unbound-dracut hummingbird 1 1.25.2-0.1.hum1
  • python3-unbound hummingbird 1 1.25.2-0.1.hum1

red hat advisories RHSA-2026:43588

  • unbound SLES for SAP 15 SP6, SLES 15 SP6-LTSS, SLE Module for Package Hub 15 SP7 +1 more 1.25.2-150600.23.19.1
  • unbound SLES for SAP 15 SP5, SLES for SAP 15 SP4, SLES 15 SP5-LTSS +6 more 1.25.2-150100.10.28.1
  • unbound Linux Micro 6.0 1.25.2-1.1
  • unbound Linux Micro 6.1 1.25.2-slfo.1.1_1.1
  • unbound SLES 16.0, Linux Micro 6.2, SLES for SAP applications 16.0 1.25.2-160000.1.1

suse advisories SUSE-SU-2026:3885-1SUSE-SU-2026:3884-1SUSE-SU-2026:23360-1SUSE-SU-2026:23349-1SUSE-SU-2026:23050-1SUSE-SU-2026:23215-1

  • unbound openSUSE Leap 16.0 1.25.2-160000.1.1
  • unbound openSUSE Tumbleweed 1.25.2-1.1

opensuse advisories openSUSE-SU-2026:21550-1openSUSE-SU-2026:11380-1

  • unbound Azure Linux 3.0 1.25.2-1

azure linux advisories AZL-92973

Azure Linux vulnerability data, Copyright (c) Microsoft Corporation, from https://github.com/microsoft/AzureLinuxVulnerabilityData via OSV, under the MIT licence; changed: normalised to fixed package versions per release. MIT

Vendor advisories

What the vendors themselves say about their products: affected, fixed or not affected, and what to do.

red hat product security vex CVE-2026-55990 updated cvss 5.9

unbound: NLnet Labs Unbound: Denial of Service via faulty DNSCrypt configuration

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 unbound, unbound-libs, python3-unbound Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 unbound, unbound-libs, unbound-dracut, python3-unbound Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10 unbound Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4 openshift/ose-rhel-coreos-8, openshift/ose-rhel-coreos-9 Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 5 openshift/ose-rhel-coreos-9
    affected: workaround, no fix available “Fix deferred”
  • Red Hat Hardened Images unbound 1.25.2-0.1.hum1, unbound-libs 1.25.2-0.1.hum1, unbound-munin 1.25.2-0.1.hum1, unbound-utils 1.25.2-0.1.hum1, unbound-anchor 1.25.2-0.1.hum1, unbound-dracut 1.25.2-0.1.hum1, +1 more
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2026:43588
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 unbound, unbound-libs, unbound-python Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 unbound, unbound-libs, unbound-python
    not affected: vulnerable code not present

Red Hat CSAF VEX © Red Hat, Inc., from https://security.access.redhat.com/data/csaf/v2/vex/; changed: reduced to product statuses and remediations. CC BY 4.0 · csaf

CISA SSVC

Exploitation
none
Automatable
no
Technical impact
partial
Assessed
3 mo ago

Exploit prediction

0.25% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 16% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-08).

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
CNA 3.1 5.9 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

Affected products

  • NLnet Labs Unbound

Classification

Weakness
  • CWE-457 Use of Uninitialized Variable

References

Sources

Fencer Vulns keeps one entry per vulnerability: the CVE id wins, then GHSA, and records that alias each other are merged, except that two CVEs always keep separate entries. The same data is available as JSON.