CVE-2026-5856

Contiki-NG DNS/mDNS Resolver Out-of-Bounds Read via Unchecked skip_name Traversal Before Transaction-ID Validation

HIGH
7.1
CVSS Score
Published: August 6, 2026 at 06:47 PM UTC
Updated: September 16, 2026 at 08:34 PM UTC
1 product affected across 1 vendorContiki-NG

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Severity
HIGH7.1
Exploit prediction
EPSS 0.3%
SSVC
No known exploit

Description

Contiki-NG's DNS/mDNS resolver skip_name() in os/services/resolv/resolv.c walks DNS wire-format name labels with no packet-boundary check, and the caller in newdata() invokes it in a loop iterating nquestions times from the attacker-controlled DNS header before validating the transaction ID. An attacker who sets nquestions higher than the number of complete questions present causes skip_name() to walk past the UDP packet buffer, and the returned pointer is cast to struct dns_answer * for further memory reads. On builds with RESOLV_CONF_SUPPORTS_MDNS enabled, any peer on the local segment can trigger the read unauthenticated via a multicast UDP 5353 packet with no outstanding query required; on standard DNS builds an attacker who can inject a UDP response from port 53 during an outstanding query can trigger the same read. Impact is out-of-bounds read of uip_buf and adjacent memory, disclosing memory contents or crashing the resolver.

Affected

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

v < 04a3f0a0067d2ee87d1f297b6d0f4392d8c98ffe

Remediation

No guide yet

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

SSVC — Action Prioritization

SSVCNo known exploitNot automatablePartial impact

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

CVSS

7.1HIGHVulnCheck
Vector?

Quick Info

StatusDEFERRED
CWE
CWE-125

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