CVE-2026-44687

NameCVE-2026-44687
DescriptionIn NLnet Labs Unbound 1.13.2 up to and including 1.25.1, stub or forward zones where the name is below an intermediate labed below a DNSSEC signed zone could be shadowed by the intermediate label's secure NXDOMAIN answer from the parent. This is caused by an off-by-one error in 'harden-below-nxdomain' logic; enabled by default. It effectively bypasses the configuration and the configured stub/forward zone is never contacted. 'harden-below-nxdomain' does an upward DNS cache walk together with a delegation point guard that does not allow NXDOMAIN synthesis above stub/forward zones. The guard tests the domain name but before stripping a label. This results in an iteration where the domain name equals the configured stub/forward zone apex that passes the guard, strips one more label, and probes the cache at the apex's immediate public parent. If that parent has a cached DNSSEC-secure NXDOMAIN, which it will for any private namespace nested two or more labels under a signed public name, the walk returns it and the configured stub/forward upstream is never contacted. This can only be triggered by the query for the intermediate label (between the stub/forward apex and the DNSSEC parent zone).
SourceCVE (at NVD; CERT, ENISA, LWN, oss-sec, fulldisc, Debian ELTS, Red Hat, Ubuntu, Gentoo, SUSE bugzilla/CVE, GitHub advisories/code/issues, web search, more)

Vulnerable and fixed packages

The table below lists information on source packages.

Source PackageReleaseVersionStatus
unbound (PTS)bullseye1.13.1-1+deb11u2vulnerable
bullseye (security)1.13.1-1+deb11u7vulnerable
bookworm1.17.1-2+deb12u4vulnerable
bookworm (security)1.17.1-2+deb12u3vulnerable
trixie (security), trixie1.22.0-2+deb13u3vulnerable
forky, sid1.26.0-1fixed

The information below is based on the following data on fixed versions.

PackageTypeReleaseFixed VersionUrgencyOriginDebian Bugs
unboundsource(unstable)1.25.2-1

Notes

https://community.nlnetlabs.nl/t/unbound-1-25-2-released/3430

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