CVE-2026-42923Degradation of service with unbounded NSEC3 hash calculations
Updated under an hour ago ()
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It affects NLnet Labs Unbound and 1 other product. Add what you run to find out whether that includes you.
No exploitation reported and no EPSS estimate yet.
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Free account, 1 product
NLnet Labs Unbound up to and including version 1.25.0 has a vulnerability in the DNSSEC validator where the code path to consult the negative cache for DS records does not take into account the limit on NSEC3 hash calculations introduced in 1.19.1. This leads to degradation of service during the attack. An adversary that controls a DNSSEC signed zone can exploit this by signing NSEC3 records with acceptably high iterations for child delegations and querying a vulnerable Unbound. Unbound will keep performing the allowed hash calculations on the NSEC3 records and will not limit the work by the mitigation introduced in 1.19.1. As a side effect, a global lock for the negative cache will be held for the duration of the hashing, blocking other threads that need to consult the negative cache. Coordinated attacks could raise the vulnerability to denial of service. Unbound 1.25.1 contains a patch with a fix to bound the vulnerable code path with the existing limit for NSEC3 hash calculations.
- CVSS
- 6.9 MEDIUM (v4.0, CNA)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
- Weakness (CWE)
- CWE-407
- Known exploited
- Not in CISA's KEV catalog
- EPSS (exploitation in the next 30 days)
- Not loaded for this CVE
- Assigned by
- NLnet Labs
- NVD analysis
- Analyzed
- Record last updated
- May 20, 2026
- First seen by InfoSec Signals
- Oct 9, 2026
The CVE record on cve.org NVD's entry
The CVE record is authoritative. Products marked “from the name” were identified from the CNA's free-text names, not a CPE, and are matched less certainly. This product uses the NVD API but is not endorsed or certified by the NVD.