High severity · published Jul 16, 2025
CVE-2025-5994
Cache poisoning via the ECS-enabled Rebirthday Attack
8.7
CVSS
0.2%
EPSS
No
On KEV
Description
A multi-vendor cache poisoning vulnerability named 'Rebirthday Attack' has been discovered in caching resolvers that support EDNS Client Subnet (ECS). Unbound is also vulnerable when compiled with ECS support, i.e., '--enable-subnet', AND configured to send ECS information along with queries to upstream name servers, i.e., at least one of the 'send-client-subnet', 'client-subnet-zone' or 'client-subnet-always-forward' options is used. Resolvers supporting ECS need to segregate outgoing queries to accommodate for different outgoing ECS information. This re-opens up resolvers to a birthday paradox attack (Rebirthday Attack) that tries to match the DNS transaction ID in order to cache non-ECS poisonous replies.
Exploitation
Is it being used?
Exploit prediction (EPSS)0.2% · higher than 12% of CVEs
Exploited in the wildNo evidence yet
CISA KEVNot listed
Ransomware campaign useNot known
Affected products
Which versions
UN
Unbound · NLnet Labs
1.6.2 before 1.23.0 · source: vendor
References
NVD
https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2025-5994
CVE.org
https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2025-5994
nlnetlabs.nl
https://nlnetlabs.nl/downloads/unbound/CVE-2025-5994.txt
lists.debian.org
https://lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2025/08/msg00019.html
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