Packet of death for a DNSCrypt misconfigured Unbound

MITRE NVD CVE.ORG JSON API

Summary

CVECVE-2026-55990
StatePUBLISHED
AssignerNLnet Labs
Source PriorityCVE Program / NVD first with legacy fallback
Published2026-07-22 14:17:21 UTC
Updated2026-07-22 20:33:11 UTC
DescriptionIn 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').

Risk And Classification

Primary CVSS: v3.1 5.9 MEDIUM from [email protected]

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

Problem Types: CWE-457 | CWE-457 CWE-457: Use of Uninitialized Variable

VersionSourceTypeScoreSeverityVector
3.1[email protected]Secondary5.9MEDIUMCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
3.1CNACVSS5.9MEDIUMCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

CVSS v3.1 Breakdown

Attack Vector
Network
Attack Complexity
High
Privileges Required
None
User Interaction
None
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality
None
Integrity
None
Availability
High

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

Vendor Declared Affected Products

SourceVendorProductVersionPlatforms
CNA NLnet Labs Unbound affected 1.7.0 1.25.2 semver Not specified

References

ReferenceSourceLinkTags
www.nlnetlabs.nl/downloads/unbound/CVE-2026-55990.txt [email protected] www.nlnetlabs.nl
CVE Program record CVE.ORG www.cve.org canonical
NVD vulnerability detail NVD nvd.nist.gov canonical, analysis

Vendor Comments And Credit

Discovery Credit

CNA: Qifan Zhang (Palo Alto Networks) (en)

Additional Advisory Data

SourceTimeEvent
CNA2026-05-18T00:00:00.000ZIssue reported by Qifan Zhang
CNA2026-06-10T00:00:00.000ZNLnet Labs shares patch
CNA2026-06-13T00:00:00.000ZQifan Zhang verifies patch
CNA2026-07-22T00:00:00.000ZFixes released with version 1.25.2

Solutions

CNA: This issue is fixed starting with version 1.25.2

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