High severity · published May 20, 2026
CVE-2026-42959
Crash during DNSSEC validation of malicious content
7.5
CVSS
0.8%
EPSS
No
On KEV
Description
NLnet Labs Unbound up to and including version 1.25.0 has a denial of service vulnerability in the DNSSEC validator that can lead to a crash given malicious upstream replies. When Unbound constructs chase-reply messages for validation, the code uses the wrong counter to calculate write offsets for ADDITIONAL section rrsets. DNAME duplication could increase the ANSWER section count and authority filtering could decrease the AUTHORITY section count and create an uninitialized array slot. Combining these two, the validator later dereferences this uninitialized pointer, causing an immediate process crash. An adversary controlling a DNSSEC-signed domain can trigger this bug with a single query by configuring a DNAME chain with unsigned CNAMEs and a response containing unsigned AUTHORITY records alongside signed ADDITIONAL glue records. Unbound 1.25.1 contains a patch with a fix to use the proper counters to calculate the write offsets.
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 57% of CVEs
Exploited in the wildNo evidence yet
CISA KEVNot listed
Ransomware campaign useNot known
Affected products
Which versions
UN
Unbound · NLnet Labs
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
RH
Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4 · Red Hat
All versions, or not specified · source: CISA
References
NVD
https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-42959
CVE.org
https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2026-42959
Mitigation
https://www.nlnetlabs.nl/downloads/unbound/CVE-2026-42959.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-2026-42959
More from Unbound
10.0
CVE-2026-42960
Possible cache poisoning via promiscuous records for the authority section
9.8
CVE-2026-82717
CNAME synthesis could lead to heap corruption
9.8
CVE-2026-81642
Heap buffer overflow and possible Remote Code Execution when digesting DNSKEY
9.8
CVE-2026-33278
Possible arbitrary code execution during DNSSEC validation
9.3
CVE-2026-50252
Possible cache poisoning attack by mapping source port population per thread
