CVE-2026-55973

'dns-error-reporting: yes' leads to stack buffer overflow

HIGH
7.5
CVSS Score
Published: July 22, 2026 at 01:09 PM UTC
Updated: October 24, 2026 at 01:10 PM UTC
1 product affected across 1 vendorUnbound

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Severity
HIGH7.5
Exploit prediction
EPSS 0.3%
SSVC
No known exploit

Description

In NLnet Labs Unbound 1.23.0 up to and including 1.25.1, when 'dns-error-reporting: yes' is set, the EDNS Report-Channel option (code 18) from the last upstream response is read and uses the option's length as the length of the agent domain. When a domain name check is performed on the agent domain, the returned lenght is not used and if the agent domain is followed by garbage, those bytes are moved onto the tail of the synthetic '_er.' report query name. That query name is later used in the iterator via a subquery to send out the DNS Error Report and when Unbound tries to walk that query name during 'find_closest_of_type()', it strips labels using the query name length rather than stopping at the embedded root, walks one byte past it, and feeds the first garbage byte to 'dname_query_hash()' as a label length writing over the stack variable 'labuf'. One ordinary upstream response from a delegated zone the attacker controls is sufficient to terminate the daemon.

Affected

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

1.23.0 ≤ v < 1.25.21.23.0
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 exploitAutomatablePartial impact

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

CVSS

7.5HIGHNLnet Labs
Vector?

Quick Info

StatusANALYZED
CWE
CWE-20

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