CVE-2018-5738

Some versions of BIND can improperly permit recursive query service to unauthorized clients

MEDIUM
5.3
CVSS Score
Published: January 16, 2019 at 08:00 PM UTC
Updated: June 17, 2026 at 02:00 AM UTC
2 products affected across 2 vendorsUbuntu LinuxBIND

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Severity
MEDIUM5.3
Exploit prediction
EPSS 11%

Description

Change #4777 (introduced in October 2017) introduced an unforeseen issue in releases which were issued after that date, affecting which clients are permitted to make recursive queries to a BIND nameserver. The intended (and documented) behavior is that if an operator has not specified a value for the "allow-recursion" setting, it SHOULD default to one of the following: none, if "recursion no;" is set in named.conf; a value inherited from the "allow-query-cache" or "allow-query" settings IF "recursion yes;" (the default for that setting) AND match lists are explicitly set for "allow-query-cache" or "allow-query" (see the BIND9 Administrative Reference Manual section 6.2 for more details); or the intended default of "allow-recursion {localhost; localnets;};" if "recursion yes;" is in effect and no values are explicitly set for "allow-query-cache" or "allow-query". However, because of the regression introduced by change #4777, it is possible when "recursion yes;" is in effect and no match list values are provided for "allow-query-cache" or "allow-query" for the setting of "allow-recursion" to inherit a setting of all hosts from the "allow-query" setting default, improperly permitting recursion to all clients. Affects BIND 9.9.12, 9.10.7, 9.11.3, 9.12.0->9.12.1-P2, the development release 9.13.0, and also releases 9.9.12-S1, 9.10.7-S1, 9.11.3-S1, and 9.11.3-S2 from BIND 9 Supported Preview Edition.

Remediation

No guide yet

No remediation guidance has been written for this CVE yet. What the record does show:

References (5)

VDB Entryx_refsource_SECTRACKThird Party Advisory
http://www.securitytracker.com/id/1041115
x_refsource_CONFIRMMitigationVendor Advisory
https://kb.isc.org/docs/aa-01616
Vendor Advisoryx_refsource_GENTOOThird Party Advisory
https://security.gentoo.org/glsa/201903-13
Vendor Advisoryx_refsource_UBUNTUThird Party Advisory
https://usn.ubuntu.com/3683-1/

CVSS

5.3MEDIUMisc
Attack Vector
NETWORK
Complexity
LOW
Privileges
NONE
User Interaction
NONE
Scope
UNCHANGED
Confidentiality
LOW
Integrity
NONE
Availability
NONE
Vector?

Quick Info

StatusMODIFIED
CWE
CWE-200

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