Attack ChainAIDerived
Hypothetical attack flow derived from CVE metadata – not a confirmed exploit chain
-
AccessGain on-path or spoofing position
-
DeliveryCraft forged NXDOMAIN for island name
-
ExploitSet NSEC/SOA RRSIG SignerName to insecure parent
-
ExecutionValidator falls back to root anchor, marks insecure
-
ImpactDeny existence of trust-island records
Vulnerability Assessment
| Weakness |
CWE
OWASP Top 10:2025
A06:2025 - Insecure Design
ASVS 5.0
V2 - Validation and Business Logic Trusted input validation
|
| Exploitation Conditions | Requires Unbound ≤1.26.1 configured with BOTH a root trust anchor AND an additional explicit 'trust-anchor:' statement for an island-of-security zone whose parent is provably insecure under the root chain - a specialized, non-default configuration that most resolvers do not run. The attacker must be able to deliver at least one forged NXDOMAIN response for a name inside that island (requiring on-path position or the ability to spoof/race a response) with the NSEC/SOA RRSIG SignerName set to the insecure parent. Limiting factors: no authentication and no user interaction are needed (PR:N/UI:N), but the uncommon island-of-security configuration and the need to craft and successfully deliver the specific forged response (reflected in AC:H) substantially constrain realistic exploitation. |
| Impact | This is a medium-severity DNSSEC validation flaw (CVSS 6.5, CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:L/A:H) in NLnet Labs Unbound ≤1.26.1, classified as CWE-807 (reliance on untrusted inputs in a security decision). The signals are internally consistent and point to a real-but-bounded risk rather than a drop-everything emergency. On one hand, the vector is network-reachable and requires no privileges or user interaction (AV:N/PR:N/UI:N), and the impact on availability is high (A:H) because the flaw lets an attacker suppress the existence of validly-signed records inside a configured trust island. On the other hand, AC:H and the vendor description show that successful exploitation depends on a specialized, non-default configuration (an explicit island-of-security 'trust-anchor:' whose parent is provably insecure) plus the ability to deliver a forged NXDOMAIN with a manipulated RRSIG SignerName. No EPSS score, no CISA KEV listing, and no POC indicator are present in the input, so there is no evidence of active or widespread exploitation - no public exploit identified at time of analysis. Net assessment: a legitimate integrity/availability bug for the subset of Unbound deployments using island-of-security trust anchors, but the narrow configuration prerequisite and high attack complexity substantially limit real-world exposure. Note a data conflict: the 'Information Disclosure' tag contradicts the CVSS confidentiality metric (C:N) and the described denial-of-existence impact - treat the tag as suspect. |
| Exploit ScenarioDerived | An attacker positioned to inject or spoof DNS responses (on-path, or exploiting a response-spoofing window) sends a forged NXDOMAIN for a name within a victim's configured island-of-security zone, setting the NSEC/SOA RRSIG SignerName to the island's provably-insecure parent. Unbound's validator is tricked into falling back to the root trust anchor and the insecure parent chain, so it treats the response as insecure and denies existence of records that are actually validly signed under the island trust anchor. No public exploit identified at time of analysis; exploitation requires high complexity (AC:H) and a non-default trust-anchor configuration. |
Get an e-mail when this CVE is exploited, patched or re-scored. Free account.
Alert meAnalysisAIv1 – Oct 21, 2026
NLnet Labs Unbound up to and including 1.26.1 can be tricked into downgrading a validly signed island-of-security zone to insecure status by a forged NXDOMAIN response, allowing an attacker to deny the existence of records inside that trusted island. The flaw only manifests in the non-default configuration where a root trust anchor and an explicit 'trust-anchor:' statement for an island-of-security zone are both present and the island's parent is provably insecure under the root chain; the attacker must also be positioned to deliver a crafted NXDOMAIN carrying an NSEC/SOA RRSIG whose SignerName names the insecure parent. No public exploit code or confirmed active exploitation was identified at time of analysis, and the high attack complexity and specialized configuration keep practical risk moderate (CVSS 6.5, AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/C:N/I:L/A:H).
RemediationAI
Upgrade Unbound to a release later than 1.26.1 as specified in the NLnet Labs advisory (https://www.nlnetlabs.nl/downloads/unbound/CVE-2026-50106.txt), since the flaw is fixed by the vendor's correction to trust-anchor selection during denial-of-existence validation. Where immediate upgrade is not possible, audit your unbound.conf for the risky pattern - a root trust anchor plus an explicit 'trust-anchor:' entry for an island-of-security zone sitting beneath a provably insecure parent - and remove that additional anchor (or move the island under a signed parent) to eliminate the affected validation path; the trade-off is that the island zone will no longer be locally validated and must be served without DNSSEC enforcement. As a secondary control, harden the resolver's transport by enabling DNS-over-TLS/HTTPS or query-response-size and source-port randomization and avoiding untrusted networks, which raises the difficulty of delivering the forged NXDOMAIN response, though it does not remove the underlying validation weakness and adds configuration and latency overhead.
Affected VersionsENISA
Affected Packages
Source: OSV (Open Source Vulnerabilities)
Affects your stack
Affects 1 package in euvd
Checking this CVE against your own stacks and servers is part of the Basic plan and up.
Technical ContextAI · show details
Unbound is a validating, recursive, caching DNS resolver. The root cause class is CWE-807, reliance on untrusted inputs in a security decision: the validator accepts an attacker-supplied SignerName from NSEC and SOA RRSIG records when deciding which trust anchor chain applies to a name. In a normal deployment the root trust anchor governs the entire namespace, but operators that host a locally signed zone under an insecure (unsigned) parent can declare that zone an 'island of security' with an additional trust-anchor: statement. When validating a denial-of-existence proof inside such an island, Unbound encounters a forged NXDOMAIN whose NSEC/SOA RRSIG SignerName points at the insecure parent; the resolver then selects the root trust anchor and, in sequence, the insecure parent chain, concluding the record is insecure and accepting the bogus NXDOMAIN instead of rejecting it against the island's own anchor. The result is an integrity failure limited to denial of existence for names within that island (I:L), with availability impact (A:H) for those names. Attack vector is network (AV:N) with no privileges or user interaction required (PR:N/UI:N), but successful delivery of a single matching forged response requires on-path position or response spoofing/racing, reflected in AC:H. The CPE cpe:2.3:a:nlnet_labs:unbound covers all versions through 1.26.1.
Know when Unbound gets its next vulnerability
- Watch products and get an email when something new is published
- Check this CVE against your own stack and servers
- Exploit and PoC references, threat intelligence from 22 sources
No credit card · 7-day full trial
Severity by source
AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:L/A:H
Network-delivered forged response with no privileges or interaction (AV:N/PR:N/UI:N); AC:H for the non-default island config plus crafted SignerName forgery; C:N, I:L, A:H for denial of existence of signed island records.
Primary rating from Vendor (NLnet Labs).
CVSS VectorVendor: NLnet Labs
Lifecycle Timeline
2DescriptionCVE.org
When NLnet Labs Unbound up to and including version 1.26.1 is configured with both a root trust anchor and an additional 'trust-anchor:' for an island-of-security zone whose parent is provably insecure under the root chain, a malicious actor who can deliver one forged NXDOMAIN response for a name inside the island, with the NSEC/SOA RRSIG 'SignerName' set to the insecure parent, tricks Unbound's validator to use the root trust anchor instead, and consecutively the insecure parent, thus causing that record to be treated as insecure and denying existence for records in the trust island.
Threat Intelligence Overview
How this decision was reached
The engine reads each signal below and applies a fixed list of rules from top to bottom. The first rule that matches sets the recommended action – like a statement, every line is shown.
What every action level means
SSVC AssessmentENISA
Priority Score
Unbound 1.6.4 through 1.9.4 contain a vulnerability in the ipsec module that can cause shell code execution after receiv
A crafted DNSKEY whose owner name is a compression pointer into its own RDATA overflows the digest buffer in the DNSSEC
Use-after-free in the DNSSEC validator of NLnet Labs Unbound resolver versions 1.19.1 through 1.25.0 allows remote attac
Remote denial of service in NLnet Labs Unbound recursive DNS resolver (versions up to and including 1.25.0) allows an at
Heap overflow denial-of-service in NLnet Labs Unbound recursive DNS resolver versions 1.14.0 through 1.25.0 allows remot
Heap-based memory corruption in NLnet Labs Unbound up to and including 1.26.0 lets a remote, unauthenticated attacker wh
Unbound before 1.9.4 accesses uninitialized memory, which allows remote attackers to trigger a crash via a crafted NOTIF
Remote denial of service in NLnet Labs Unbound 1.22.0 through 1.25.1 lets an unauthenticated client exhaust configured m
Remote denial-of-service in NLnet Labs Unbound 1.23.0 through 1.25.1 lets an attacker who controls a delegated DNS zone
Remote denial-of-service in NLnet Labs Unbound 1.9.0 through 1.25.1 allows an unauthenticated attacker to crash the recu
Heap buffer overflow in NLnet Labs Unbound 1.26.0 and earlier can be triggered when a resolver processing a large TCP-fr
Denial-of-service through algorithmic complexity attacks in NLnet Labs Unbound up to and including 1.26.0 can degrade or
EUVD-2026-107152
GHSA-pj55-6fvm-845h
NVD
CVE.org
EPSS
VulDB
Exploit-DB