Medium severity · published Jul 22, 2026
CVE-2026-55991
Remote DNS-over-QUIC (DoQ) flow-control assertion failure in libngtcp2
5.9
CVSS
0.4%
EPSS
No
On KEV
Description
In NLnet Labs Unbound 1.22.0 up to and including 1.25.1, a remote unauthenticated client can trigger a libngtcp2 assertion (if compiled with assertions on) and terminate the entire Unbound process using a single DNS-over-QUIC (DoQ) connection and one normal DNS query. This is caused by an erroneous error value passed to libngtcp2. When 'ngtcp2_conn_writev_stream()' returns 'NGTCP2_ERR_STREAM_DATA_BLOCKED', Unbound continues to call 'ngtcp2_ccerr_set_application_error()' with a '-1' error value. The 'int' literal '-1' is implicitly converted to the function's 'uint64_t error_code' parameter as '0xFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF'. The follow-on 'ngtcp2_conn_write_connection_close()' serialises that value as a QUIC variable-length integer; because '2^64-1' exceeds the 62-bit varint ceiling, 'ngtcp2_put_uvarintlen()' fails 'assert(n < 4611686018427387904ULL)' and the whole resolver process aborts. A remote, unauthenticated DoQ client can trigger this deterministically with a single QUIC connection by advertising 'initial_max_stream_data_bidi_local = 1' in its transport parameters and sending one DoQ query without ever reading the stream.
CVSS vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
Attack vector
Network
Complexity
High
Privileges
None
User interaction
None
Confidentiality
None
Integrity
None
Availability
High
Scope
Unchanged
Exploitation
Is it being used?
Exploit prediction (EPSS)0.4% · higher than 30% of CVEs
Exploited in the wildNo evidence yet
CISA KEVNot listed
Ransomware campaign useNot known
Affected products
Which versions
UN
Unbound · NLnet Labs
1.22.0 before 1.25.2 · source: vendor, NVD
References
NVD
https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-55991
CVE.org
https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2026-55991
Vendor Advisory
https://www.nlnetlabs.nl/downloads/unbound/CVE-2026-55991.txt
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