Vulnerability in NLnet Labs Unbound (CVE-2026-56444)
Summary
Vulnerability in NLnet Labs Unbound (CVE-2026-56444). Risk of unauthorized operations or information disclosure.
Original description
The description as published by the source.
In NLnet Labs Unbound 1.20.0 up to and including 1.25.1, when Unbound is configured with 'serve-expired: yes' and 'serve-expired-client-timeout > discard-timeout > 0' (contrary to the suggested values), the discard-timeout branch during the serve expired logic drops an aged client reply without performing the correct accounting for the number of reply addresses for the query. Other identical branches outside of serve expired perform the correct decrement. Since the counter is never decremented in such scenario, it can reach the maximum limit and new clients for duplicate in-flight queries are silently dropped resulting in degradation of resolution service. A malicious actor can exploit the vulnerability by querying the resolver for a client-controlled slow-on-demand authoritative zone that can drive the counter past the threshold. Shipped defaults for 'serve-expired-client-timeout: 1800' and 'discard-timeout: 1900' make the branch unreachable.
Source: GitHub Security Advisories (Global) NVD GitHub Advisory
Auto-generated summary
Assembled by SecPulse from the source data (CVSS, CWE, affected versions) using templates — no AI involved. Check the original description and references below for exact details.
A vulnerability tracked as CVE-2026-56444 has been found in NLnet Labs Unbound.
Risk of unauthorized operations or information disclosure. CVSS score: 5.9/10.
What to do: apply the vendor's official patched release.
If unsure, ask your IT team or search "NLnet Labs Unbound CVE-2026-56444" on the vendor's site.
CVE-2026-56444 (NLnet Labs Unbound) — CWE-772 / CVSS v3 5.9
Attack vector: remote (network-reachable) / unauthenticated / no user interaction
Plan: 1) Audit SBOM/dependencies, 2) Stage→prod upgrade, 3) Add WAF/proxy monitoring on affected endpoints, 4) Hunt IOCs in logs.
Refs: see the GHSA / vendor advisory / patched release linked on this page.
A vulnerability (CWE-772) exists in NLnet Labs Unbound.
Check the vendor advisory for the affected versions of NLnet Labs Unbound.
Severity: Medium (CVSS 5.9/10). Risk of unauthorized operations or information disclosure.
Update to the patched release per vendor advisory.
Until the patch is applied: disable the affected feature, apply WAF rules, or restrict access via network ACLs.
Search webserver/proxy logs for unusual request patterns matching this CVE's known IOCs. Audit SBOM/dependencies to find affected services.
Response actions
Concrete steps and command examples for SOC/SRE teams to execute in order
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1Identify exposure identify
Audit SBOM/dependencies for affected components.資産台帳・SBOM・依存マニフェストで NLnet Labs Unbound を使っているサービスとバージョンを洗い出す。
-
2Post-deployment verification verify
Confirm patched version is live in productionパッチ適用後、ステージングで PoC または同等の悪用パターンを再現して脆弱性が閉じたことを確認。本番ではアクセスログ・WAF でアラート再発が無いか継続監視。
Fix status by distribution
Fixed packages published by each distribution for this CVE
- Alpine Linux ALPINE-CVE-2026-56444 unbound Fixed in: 1.25.2-r0
- Debian DEBIAN-CVE-2026-56444 unbound
- Ubuntu UBUNTU-CVE-2026-56444 unbound
References
- patch sep@nlnetlabs.nl
- web nvd.nist.gov
- web github.com