High severity · published May 20, 2026
CVE-2026-42944
Heap overflow with multiple NSID, COOKIE, PADDING EDNS options
7.5
CVSS
0.8%
EPSS
No
On KEV
Description
NLnet Labs Unbound 1.14.0 up to and including version 1.25.0 has a vulnerability that results in heap overflow when encoding multiple NSID and/or DNS Cookie EDNS and/or EDNS Padding options in the reply packet. The relevant options ('nsid', 'answer-cookie', 'pad-responses' (default)) need to be enabled for the vulnerability to be exploited. An adversary who can query Unbound can exploit the vulnerability by attaching multiple NSID and/or DNS Cookie EDNS and/or EDNS Padding options to the query. A flaw in the size calculation of the EDNS field truncates the correct value which allows the encoder to overflow the available space when writing. Those two combined lead to a heap overflow write of Unbound controlled data and eventually a crash. Unbound 1.25.1 contains a patch with a fix to de-duplicate the EDNS options and a fix to prevent truncation of the EDNS field size calculation.
CVSS vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
Attack vector
Network
Complexity
Low
Privileges
None
User interaction
None
Confidentiality
None
Integrity
None
Availability
High
Scope
Unchanged
Exploitation
Is it being used?
Exploit prediction (EPSS)0.8% · higher than 58% of CVEs
Exploited in the wildNo evidence yet
CISA KEVNot listed
Ransomware campaign useNot known
Affected products
Which versions
UN
Unbound · NLnet Labs
1.14.0 before 1.25.1 · source: vendor, NVD
RH
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10 · Red Hat
All versions, or not specified · source: CISA
RH
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 · Red Hat
All versions, or not specified · source: CISA
RH
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 · Red Hat
All versions, or not specified · source: CISA
RH
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 · Red Hat
All versions, or not specified · source: CISA
RH
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 · Red Hat
All versions, or not specified · source: CISA
RH
Red Hat Hardened Images · Red Hat
All versions, or not specified · source: CISA
References
NVD
https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-42944
CVE.org
https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2026-42944
Mitigation
https://www.nlnetlabs.nl/downloads/unbound/CVE-2026-42944.txt
access.redhat.com
https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2026:19752
access.redhat.com
https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2026:23231
access.redhat.com
https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2026:24365
access.redhat.com
https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2026:24369
access.redhat.com
https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2026-42944
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