CVE-2026-42955

Extra fix for CVE-2026-40622 to also clamp the TTL of A/AAAA records disallowing a one-time 'ghost domain' delegation renewal via glue records

LOW
3.7
CVSS Score
Published: July 22, 2026 at 01:05 PM UTC
Updated: October 24, 2026 at 01:10 PM UTC
1 product affected across 1 vendorUnbound

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Severity
LOW3.7
Exploit prediction
EPSS 0.2%
SSVC
No known exploit

Description

In NLnet Labs Unbound 1.16.2 up to and including 1.25.1, a similar vulnerability as with CVE-2026-40622 in the 'ghost domain names' family of attacks was found in Unbound that could extend the ghost domain window by up to one cached TTL configured value for A/AAAA glue records. Similar to other 'ghost domain names' attacks, an adversary needs to control a (ghost) zone and be able to query a vulnerable Unbound. A single client A/AAAA query can cause Unbound to overwrite the cached expired parent-side glue rrset and essentially extend the ghost domain window by up to one cached TTL configured value ('cache-max-ttl'). In configurations where 'harden-referral-path: yes' is used (non-default configuration), no client query is required since Unbound implicitly performs that query. This is a variant of CVE-2026-40622 which only addressed the NS query.

Affected

Our own answer: ranges merged, affected separated from platform-only, with confidence and review flags.

1.16.2 ≤ v < 1.25.21.16.2
Affected range stops below 1.25.2, so it looks safe — our inference, not a vendor statement

Remediation

No guide yet

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

References (1)

SSVC — Action Prioritization

SSVCNo known exploitNot automatablePartial impact

SSVC signals action urgency (what to patch first), separate from CVSS which measures severity.

CVSS

3.7LOWNLnet Labs
Vector?

Quick Info

StatusANALYZED
CWE
CWE-672

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