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CVE-2026-42534: CWE-440: Expected Behavior Violation in NLnet Labs Unbound

0
Medium
Published: 05/20/2026 (05/20/2026, 09:19:37 UTC)
Source: GCVE Database
Vendor/Project: NLnet Labs
Product: Unbound

Description

NLnet Labs Unbound up to and including version 1.25.0 has a vulnerability in the jostle logic that could defeat its purpose and degrade resolution performance. Retransmits of the same query could renew the age of slow running queries and not allow the jostle logic to see them as aged and potential targets for replacement with new queries. An adversary who can query a vulnerable Unbound and who can control a domain name server that replies slowly and/or maliciously to Unbound's queries can exploit the vulnerability and degrade the resolution performance of Unbound. When Unbound's 'num-queries-per-thread' reaches its limit, the jostle logic kicks in. When a new query comes in, half of the available queries that are also slow to resolve are candidates for replacement. The vulnerability then happens because duplicate queries that need resolution would skew the aging result by using the timestamp of the latest duplicate query instead of the original one that started the resolution effort. Cache and local data response performance remains unaffected. Coordinated attacks could raise this to a denial of resolution service. Unbound 1.25.1 contains a patch with a fix to attach an initial, non-updatable start time for incoming queries that allow the jostle logic to work as intended.

CVSS v4.0

Score 6.9medium

Attack Vector
Network
Attack Complexity
Low
Attack Requirements
None
Privileges Required
None
User Interaction
None
Vuln. Confidentiality
None
Vuln. Integrity
None
Vuln. Availability
Low
Subsq. Confidentiality
None
Subsq. Integrity
None
Subsq. Availability
None
CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:N/VC:N/VI:N/VA:L/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N/U:Amber

Affected software

debian/unbound
pkg:deb/debian/unbound
Affected versions
<1.25.1
redhat/unbound
pkg:rpm/redhat/unbound
Affected versions
<1.25.1

Run on your own infrastructure? Check whether these packages are installed with threat-finder — our free open-source scanner.

Technical Details

Gcve Source
db.gcve.eu
Osv Id
GHSA-xfcv-gp55-3wpf
Osv Schema Version
1.4.0
Aliases
["CVE-2026-42534"]
Database Specific Severity
MODERATE
Cvss Version
4.0
State
PUBLISHED

Threat ID: 6a6ae5599c2644c7f89a9601

Added to database: 07/30/2026, 05:47:05 UTC

Last enriched: 07/30/2026, 07:27:34 UTC

Last updated: 09/10/2026, 21:05:23 UTC

Views: 44

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