CVE-2026-77860

Public on 2026-09-16
Modified on 2026-09-17
Description
In NLnetLabs Unbound 1.20.0 up to and including 1.26.0, a vulnerability on the 'serve-expired' code path can cause a double decrement on the 'wait-limit' counter per client IP essentially bypassing one of the counter measures that was introduced for DNSBomb (CVE-2024-33655). A malicious actor can exploit this by controlling an authoritative zone with short TTL, so cached entries expire quickly. Each 'slow' query, one the attacker's authoritative never answers, is followed by one query for an expired cached name, which is answered immediately via the 'serve-expired' path and decrements the counter twice. This second query was named 'pump'. By alternating slow queries and pumps, the attacker keeps the per-client counter at or below the configured 'wait-limit' indefinitely, and can hold an arbitrary number of pending queries from a single source IP, up to the global mesh quota (num-queries-per-thread); eventually bypassing one of the counter measures introduced for DNSBomb (CVE-2024-33655). This vulnerability is present on the 'serve-expired' code path.
Severity
Medium severity
Medium
See what this means
CVSS v3 Base Score
5.3
See breakdown

Affected Packages

Platform Package Release Date Advisory Status
Amazon Linux 2 - Core unbound Not Affected
Amazon Linux 2 - Unbound1.17 Extra unbound Not Affected
Amazon Linux 2023 unbound Not Affected
Amazon Linux 2027 Preview unbound Pending Fix

CVSS Scores

Score Type Score Vector
Amazon Linux CVSSv3 5.3 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L