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CVE-2026-96405

Aggregate DNS name chained pointer decompression work leads to degradation of service.

MEDIUM
5.3
CVSS Score
Published: October 21, 2026 at 08:57 AM UTC
Updated: October 29, 2026 at 07:17 PM UTC
1 product affected across 1 vendorUnbound

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Severity
MEDIUM5.3
Exploit prediction
EPSS 0.3%
SSVC
No known exploit

Description

NLnet Labs Unbound up to and including version 1.26.1 limits compression-pointer traversal for each individual domain-name operation but has no aggregate inbound decompression-work budget. Many chained compression pointers in a message results in a lot of CPU usage following them. A malicious actor with recursive-query access and control of an ordinarily delegated authority that serves specially crafted replies can exploit the vulnerability and degrade Unbound's general performance.

Affected

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

Unbound· Nlnetlabs
90%
All versions

Remediation

No guide yet

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

Patch and advisory references

References (1)

Vendor Advisory
Source: cverecord
https://www.nlnetlabs.nl/downloads/unbound/CVE-2026-96405.txt

SSVC — Action Prioritization

SSVCNo known exploitAutomatablePartial impact

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

CVSS

5.3MEDIUMNLnet Labs
Vector?

Quick Info

StatusAWAITING ANALYSIS
CWE
CWE-770

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