CVE-2026-81642
9.8 CRITICALPublished 2026-09-16 · Updated 2026-09-22
AI risk analysis
- Summary
- The vulnerability in Unbound up to 1.26.0 allows an attacker to cause a denial of service or execute remote code through a maliciously crafted DNSKEY, due to improper handling of DNSKEY RDATA.
- Exploitability
- Exploitation requires control over a malicious DNS zone and querying a vulnerable Unbound instance. The vulnerability is complex to exploit due to the specific conditions needed for the RDATA overflow.
- Blast radius
- If exploited, the impact could be severe, leading to service disruption and potential remote code execution on the affected system.
- Detection
- No reliable host or network indicator is derivable from the published description.
- Prioritized remediation
- Upgrade to Unbound 1.27.0 or later.
Analysis generated locally by qwen2.5:7b-instruct (no data left the box). AI-assisted — verify against primary sources before acting.
NVD description
In NLnet Labs Unbound up to and including 1.26.0, a vulnerability was found in the DNSSEC validator that enables denial of service and possible remote code execution as a result of digesting DNSKEYs. A DNSKEY with an owner compression pointer to its own RDATA can overflow the digest buffer. Remote code execution is possible through attacker controlled data. An adversary can exploit the vulnerability by controlling a malicious zone and querying a vulnerable Unbound.
CVSS vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
Weaknesses
CWE-122
Vendors
nlnetlabs
Products
unbound
All references
Source data: NVD (nvd.nist.gov), public domain. Exploit-DB.ai adds local AI analysis for defensive use only.
Related CVEs
- CRITICALCVE-2026-10747
- CRITICALCVE-2026-10858
- HIGHCVE-2026-11375
- HIGHCVE-2026-11381
- HIGHCVE-2026-11378
- HIGHCVE-2026-11725
- HIGHCVE-2026-12268
- CRITICALCVE-2026-13639
Related by shared AI tags and CWE weakness class. Browse the full archive.