In NLnet Labs Unbound 1.6.0 up to and including 1.25.1, a replay of a wildcard rrset as another piece of data, could be briefly considered DNSSEC secure based only on the RRSIG validation and stored into cache, before later validation treats it as bogus based on NSEC validation. When the resolving thread puts secure on the rrset, and another thread that is on the serve expired path then picks up the updated rrset contents with the secure status for a reply, it can be used to change a specific record, next to a wildcard that could be covered by the wildcard, into the wildcard. A malicious actor can exploit the possible poisonous effect by having any DNSSEC-singed domain (irrelevant to the victim domain) and a CNAME wrapper record that points to a record next to a wildcard (that could be covered by the wildcard). Then quering Unbound for the wildcard sibling record would seed the secure message. A later (after expiry) query for the CNAME wrapper would need to resolve the target sibling record. If the wildcard replay is injected into the response, the wildcard rrset will update the expired sibling record with a secure status before completing proper wildcard validation with NSEC records and eventually treating the CNAME wrapper answer as bogus. The updated poisoned rrset is now secure and points to the wildcard. This vulnerability is explicit for the serve expired path and needs injection of the signed wildcard rrset without the NSEC accompanying rrset.
CVSS Details
- CVSS 3.1 Base Score: 3.7
- CVSS 3.1 Vector: (CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:L/A:N)
Covered by Rapid7
| Product | Vendor Advisory | Solution File | Added | Published |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Alpine Linux | — | Upgrade unbound | Jul 29, 2026 | Jul 22, 2026 |
| Amazon_linux_2023 | — | Upgrade unbound-libsUpgrade unboundUpgrade unbound-debugsourceUpgrade unbound-utils-debuginfoUpgrade unbound-anchorUpgrade unbound-develUpgrade unbound-debuginfoUpgrade unbound-utilsUpgrade python3-unboundUpgrade unbound-anchor-debuginfoUpgrade python3-unbound-debuginfoUpgrade unbound-libs-debuginfo | Aug 10, 2026 | Jul 22, 2026 |
| Debian | — | Upgrade unbound | Sep 21, 2026 | Jul 22, 2026 |
| Freebsd | — | Upgrade unbound | Jul 28, 2026 | Jul 25, 2026 |
| Redhat_linux | — | No solution exists | Aug 4, 2026 | Jul 22, 2026 |
| Vmware Photon_os | — | Use 'tdnf update' to upgrade all packages to the latest version. | Aug 10, 2026 | Jul 22, 2026 |
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