CVE-2026-96405
Received
Received - Intake
Unbound DNS Server Compression-Pointer CPU Exhaustion
Vulnerability report for CVE-2026-96405, including description, CVSS score, EPSS score, affected products, exploitability, helpful resources, and attack-flow context.
Publication date: 2026-10-21
Last updated on: 2026-10-21
Assigner: NLnet Labs
Description
Description
NLnet Labs Unbound up to and including version 1.26.1 limits compression-pointer traversal for each individual domain-name operation but has no aggregate inbound decompression-work budget. Many chained compression pointers in a message results in a lot of CPU usage following them. A malicious actor with recursive-query access and control of an ordinarily delegated authority that serves specially crafted replies can exploit the vulnerability and degrade Unbound's general performance.
CVSS Scores
EPSS Scores
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Meta Information
Affected Vendors & Products
| Vendor | Product | Version / Range |
|---|---|---|
| NLnet | Labs | Unbound 0 |
Helpful Resources
Exploitability
CWE
KEV
| CWE ID | Description |
|---|---|
| CWE-770 | The product allocates a reusable resource or group of resources on behalf of an actor without imposing any intended restrictions on the size or number of resources that can be allocated. |
