PowerDNS Recursor from 4.1.0 up to and including 4.3.0 does not sufficiently defend against amplification attacks. An issue in the DNS protocol has been found that allow malicious parties to use recursive DNS services to attack third party authoritative name servers. The attack uses a crafted reply by an authoritative name server to amplify the resulting traffic between the recursive and other authoritative name servers. Both types of service can suffer degraded performance as an effect. This is triggered by random subdomains in the NSDNAME in NS records. PowerDNS Recursor 4.1.16, 4.2.2 and 4.3.1 contain a mitigation to limit the impact of this DNS protocol issue.
CVSS Details
- CVSS 3.1 Base Score: 7.5
- CVSS 3.1 Vector: (CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H)
Covered by Rapid7
| Product | Vendor Advisory | Solution File | Added | Published |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Alpine Linux | alpine-linux-upgrade-pdns-recursor | Jun 16, 2020 | May 19, 2020 | |
| Arch Linux | arch-linux-upgrade-latest | Jul 11, 2025 | May 19, 2020 | |
| Debian | debian-upgrade-pdns-recursor | May 25, 2020 | May 19, 2020 | |
| Freebsd | freebsd-upgrade-package-powerdns-recursor | May 28, 2020 | May 26, 2020 | |
| Suse | — | suse-upgrade-pdns-recursor | May 24, 2020 | May 19, 2020 |
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