Attack ChainAIDerived
Hypothetical attack flow derived from CVE metadata – not a confirmed exploit chain
-
AccessPublish malicious CRL in RPKI repository
-
DeliveryRoutinator fetches CRL during validation
-
ExploitOversized or malformed CRL parsed
-
ExecutionHang, memory exhaustion, or process exit
-
ImpactRPKI validation service disrupted
Vulnerability Assessment
| Weakness |
CWE
OWASP Top 10:2025
A10:2025 - Mishandling of Exceptional Conditions
ASVS 5.0
V16 - Security Logging and Error Handling Exception handling procedures
|
| Exploitation Conditions | Routinator must fetch and parse an attacker-supplied CRL that either contains a very large number of entries (triggering the hang / out-of-memory path) or uses an incorrect encoding (triggering the process exit). The concrete prerequisite is that the attacker can serve such a CRL within the RPKI repository hierarchy that the target Routinator instance validates; no authentication to Routinator itself is required. The limiting factor is this delivery requirement - the attacker needs publishing control over a repository/CA in a trusted RPKI path, which is a meaningful barrier beyond the raw AV:N rating, though no user interaction or special non-default Routinator configuration is indicated by the advisory. |
| Impact | All signals point to an availability-only denial-of-service issue. The CVSS 3.1 vector (AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H, base 7.5) scores C:N/I:N and A:H, meaning no data is exposed or altered - only availability is affected, which directly contradicts the input 'Information Disclosure' tag. The vuln.today decision label is 'this_week' (not act_now/emergency), and there is no CISA KEV listing and no EPSS value supplied, so there is no evidence of active or widespread exploitation; no public exploit is identified. The practical catch the raw CVSS understates is the delivery precondition: Routinator must fetch and parse a malicious CRL, which requires the attacker to publish that CRL somewhere in the RPKI repository hierarchy Routinator validates - AV:N is technically correct but real exploitation depends on controlling a repository/CA in a validated trust path, so this is better treated as an availability-hardening fix to apply this week than as an emergency. EPSS and KEV data are both absent from the input (absence, not a low score), so exploitation likelihood cannot be quantified from the provided signals. |
| Exploit ScenarioDerived | An attacker who can publish objects in an RPKI repository that Routinator fetches places a CRL containing a very large number of entries, causing Routinator to hang or exhaust memory during validation; alternatively they serve a CRL with an invalid encoding, causing the process to exit. The result is disruption of RPKI route origin validation for the operator running Routinator. No public exploit is identified at time of analysis. |
Get an e-mail when this CVE is exploited, patched or re-scored. Free account.
Alert meAnalysisAIv1 – Oct 26, 2026
Routinator, NLnet Labs' RPKI relying-party validator, can be hung or terminated by a CRL fetched from the repository hierarchy it validates: a CRL carrying a very large number of entries drives the hang or out-of-memory path, while a CRL with an incorrect encoding causes the process to exit, producing an availability-only denial of service (CVSS 7.5, A:H, with no confidentiality or integrity impact). The CPE entry cpe:2.3:a:nlnet_labs:routinator is unversioned, so all releases are presumed affected until the vendor advisory names fixed versions. No public exploit code and no confirmed active exploitation were identified at time of analysis; the practical barrier is that an attacker must be able to serve the crafted CRL from a repository or CA inside a trusted RPKI validation path, and no authentication to Routinator itself is required.
RemediationAI
The supplied data does not name a fixed release, so the exact patched Routinator version must be taken from the NLnet Labs advisory at https://www.nlnetlabs.nl/downloads/routinator/CVE-2026-72754.txt rather than assumed; upgrading to the version that advisory identifies is the primary fix, since the defect sits in the CRL parsing path that Routinator exercises during normal validation. No workaround or compensating control is described in the available sources, and the vendor advisory should be treated as the sole source for both the fixed version and any interim guidance. Because the exposure depends on an attacker being able to serve a crafted CRL from within a repository or CA that the instance validates, the practical scope of the risk is set by which repositories and trust anchors the deployment follows, a boundary the advisory does not itself propose changing.
Affected VersionsENISA
Affects your stack
Find out whether the stacks and servers you run are on an affected version.
Checking this CVE against your own stacks and servers is part of the Basic plan and up.
Technical ContextAI · show details
Routinator is an RPKI relying-party validator: it walks the RPKI repository hierarchy, retrieving signed objects and the CRLs published by CAs, and it must parse those CRLs (DER-encoded structures listing revoked certificate serial numbers) as part of validation. The flaw is classified as CWE-755, Improper Handling of Exceptional Conditions, and the two described behaviours map directly onto that class: an oversized CRL with a very large number of revoked entries is not bounded defensively, so parsing consumes memory or processing time until the validator hangs or exhausts memory, and a CRL whose encoding is incorrect is not handled gracefully, so the process exits instead of rejecting the object and continuing. Both are availability failures in the parsing path rather than memory-corruption or trust-decision bugs, consistent with the assessed vector CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H. The trigger is reached only when Routinator actually retrieves and parses the malicious CRL, which requires the object to be reachable within the validation path the instance follows; the sources do not describe any non-default Routinator setting that would be needed.
Know when Routinator 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:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
Remote parsing of a fetched CRL with no target-side auth gives AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N; impact is availability only (hang/OOM/exit), so C:N/I:N/A:H.
Primary rating from Vendor (NLnet Labs).
CVSS VectorVendor: NLnet Labs
DescriptionCVE.org
When Routinator encounters a CRL with many entries, it may hang or run out of memory. If Routinator encounters a CRL file with the wrong encoding, it may exit.
Executive ViewAI
A high-severity availability vulnerability in NLnet Labs' Routinator RPKI validator could allow disruption of RPKI validation operations, affecting organizations that rely on this tool for route origin validation. Since Routinator is used to ensure the integrity of internet routing decisions, a successful denial-of-service could degrade network security posture and operational continuity. Leadership should prioritize remediation due to the critical role of RPKI in modern network defense.
No vendor-released patch identified at time of analysis. Interim mitigations include restricting RPKI repository access to trusted sources, implementing process monitoring with automatic restart, and isolating Routinator instances to limit impact.
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
More in Routinator
View allAn issue was discovered in NLnet Labs Routinator 0.1.0 through 0.7.1. Rated high severity (CVSS 7.4), this vulnerability
Denial of service in NLnet Labs Routinator allows remote attackers to crash the RPKI validator by serving a crafted Docu
Denial of service in NLnet Labs Routinator allows remote unauthenticated attackers to crash the daemon by opening a larg
Path traversal in NLnet Labs Routinator allows remote attackers to escape the rsync cache directory by supplying rsync U
Denial of service in NLnet Labs Routinator (an RPKI Relying Party software) allows remote attackers to crash the daemon
Routinator, NLnet Labs' RPKI relying party validator, mishandles RRDP notification files by accepting delta entries with
Routinator, NLnet Labs' RPKI relying-party validator, can be driven into memory exhaustion by an AS range in RPKI data w
Routinator exits when it encounters an RRDP-delivered rsync URI whose path cannot be stored on disk, producing a denial
Due to a mistake in error checking, Routinator will terminate when an incoming RTR connection is reset by the peer too q
NLnet Labs' Routinator up to and including version 0.12.1 may crash when trying to parse certain malformed RPKI objects.
In NLnet Labs Routinator 0.9.0 up to and including 0.11.2, due to a mistake in error handling, data in RRDP snapshot and
NLnet Labs Routinator versions 0.9.0 up to and including 0.10.1, support the gzip transfer encoding when querying RRDP r
EUVD-2026-110027
GHSA-3fw4-8xwf-g8j8
NVD
CVE.org
EPSS
Vulnrichment
Exploit-DB