CVE-2026-81634 (GCVE-0-2026-81634)
Vulnerability from cvelistv5 – Published: 2026-09-16 08:30 – Updated: 2026-09-16 14:32
VLAI
EPSS
VEX
Title
Possible heap buffer overflow during DNSSEC canonicalization
Summary
In NLnet Labs Unbound up to and including 1.26.0, a 255 length query name with a large TCP response can lead to a heap buffer overflow during the RRSet canonicalisation routine. This is caused by missing to add the first owner name into the buffer length check. A malicious actor operating a malicious name server or tampering with an incoming response to Unbound (canonicalisation happens before DNSSEC validation), can trigger the vulnerability.
Severity
7.5 (High)
SSVC
Exploitation: none
Automatable: yes
Technical Impact: partial
CISA Coordinator · CISA-ADP (v2.0.3)
Decision recorded 2026-09-16 14:32 UTC
CWE
- CWE-122 - Heap-based Buffer Overflow
Assigner
References
1 reference
| URL | Tags |
|---|---|
| https://www.nlnetlabs.nl/downloads/unbound/CVE-20… | vendor-advisory |
Impacted products
1 product
| Vendor | Product | Version | CPE status | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| NLnet Labs | Unbound |
Affected:
0 , < 1.26.1
(semver)
|
guessed |
Date Public
2026-09-16 00:00
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Experimental. This forecast is provided for visualization only and may change without notice. Do not use it for operational decisions.
Forecast uses a logistic model when the trend is rising, or an exponential decay model when the trend is falling. Fitted via linearized least squares.
Sightings
| Author | Source | Type | Date | Other |
|---|
Nomenclature
- Seen: The vulnerability was mentioned, discussed, or observed by the user.
- Confirmed: The vulnerability has been validated from an analyst's perspective.
- Published Proof of Concept: A public proof of concept is available for this vulnerability.
- Exploited: The vulnerability was observed as exploited by the user who reported the sighting.
- Patched: The vulnerability was observed as successfully patched by the user who reported the sighting.
- Not exploited: The vulnerability was not observed as exploited by the user who reported the sighting.
- Not confirmed: The user expressed doubt about the validity of the vulnerability.
- Not patched: The vulnerability was not observed as successfully patched by the user who reported the sighting.
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The MITRE ATT&CK techniques below are AI-generated suggestions, inferred from the description of the
vulnerability by the CIRCL/vulnerability-attack-technique-classification-roberta-base
model, served locally by ML-Gateway.
They have not been verified by an analyst and are provided for guidance only.
The approach is described in our paper Mapping CVEs to MITRE ATT&CK Techniques: A Curated Gold-Set Classifier and the Limits of LLM-Assisted Label Expansion.
Browse all ATT&CK techniques and the vulnerabilities related to each.
The approach is described in our paper Mapping CVEs to MITRE ATT&CK Techniques: A Curated Gold-Set Classifier and the Limits of LLM-Assisted Label Expansion.
Browse all ATT&CK techniques and the vulnerabilities related to each.
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Related by attack behaviour
Vulnerabilities whose description is nearest to this one in the vector space of the CIRCL/vulnerability-attack-technique-biencoder model. This is a similarity search over the bi-encoder space (plain cosine), not a classification, and it has no measured accuracy.
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