CVE-2026-56416

Medium

Description

In NLnet Labs Unbound up to and including version 1.25.1, when the validator builds the canonical RDATA form for an RRSIG-covered PX/RP/MINFO/SOA RRset, it computes the address of the second embedded domain name as 'datstart + dname_valid(datstart, ...)' and passes it straight to 'query_dname_tolower()' without checking that a second name is actually present in the RDATA. The wire-format parser accepts multi-dname RRs whose RDATA ends after the first name, so an attacker who runs a DNSSEC-signed authoritative server can deliver a record with an absent second domain name (e.g. SOA record) and cause 'query_dname_tolower()' to walk label-by-label through stale bytes in the per-worker 'env->scratch_buffer', past the end of that heap allocation if 'msg-buffer-size' has been lowered from the default. This leads to heap buffer overflow and on a release build the outcome relies heavily on the contents of the buffer tail and the adjacent heap chunk.

SeverityMedium
CVSS4.8
Exploit probability—
ProductNlnetlabs Unbound
PublishedJul 22, 2026
First seenJul 22, 2026
Weakness typeCWE-354CWE-354

How to fix

Update
  • nlnetlabs unbound1.25.2 or later

Affected products

ProductAffected versionsFixed in
nlnetlabs unboundv < 1.25.21.25.2

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