Vulnerability-Lookup

GHSA-QWGF-HJ58-8C2W

Vulnerability from github – Published: 2026-09-16 09:30 – Updated: 2026-09-16 09:30

Details

Novel vulnerabilities to launch algorithmic complexity attacks on DNSSEC have been researched under the term 'ReTrap'. These result in degradation of service when malicious zones are used to serve the algorithmic complexity vulnerabilities. NLnet Labs Unbound up to and including 1.26.0 is vulnerable to some of them. TagTrap, where the triple(Zone, Algo, KeyTag) matching mechanism introduces a significant attack vector when resolvers handle malicious responses containing numerous mismatched DNSKEY, RRSIG, and DS record. DelegationTrap, where constructing the chain-of-trust requires iterative validation of DNSKEY and DS records from the root zone downward. For deeply nested domains, this results in significant computational overhead. NsecTrap, where responses with excessive invalid NSEC records compel the resolver to validate each one. AdditionalTrap, where Unbound by default would try to DNSSEC validate the ADDITIONAL section as well. This can be exploited to waste validation resources by malicious users.

Severity

5.3 (Medium)


                  
                    CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L

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{
  "affected": [],
  "aliases": [
    "CVE-2026-85501"
  ],
  "database_specific": {
    "cwe_ids": [
      "CWE-770"
    ],
    "github_reviewed": false,
    "github_reviewed_at": null,
    "nvd_published_at": "2026-09-16T09:17:06Z",
    "severity": "MODERATE"
  },
  "details": "Novel vulnerabilities to launch algorithmic complexity attacks on DNSSEC have been researched under the term \u0027ReTrap\u0027. These result in degradation of service when malicious zones are used to serve the algorithmic complexity vulnerabilities. NLnet Labs Unbound up to and including 1.26.0 is vulnerable to some of them. TagTrap, where  the triple(Zone, Algo, KeyTag) matching mechanism introduces a significant attack vector when resolvers handle malicious responses containing numerous mismatched DNSKEY, RRSIG, and DS record. DelegationTrap, where constructing the chain-of-trust requires iterative validation of DNSKEY and DS records from the root zone downward. For deeply nested domains, this results in significant computational overhead. NsecTrap, where  responses with excessive invalid NSEC records compel the resolver to validate each one. AdditionalTrap, where Unbound by default would try to DNSSEC validate the ADDITIONAL section as well. This can be exploited to waste validation resources by malicious users.",
  "id": "GHSA-qwgf-hj58-8c2w",
  "modified": "2026-09-16T09:30:28Z",
  "published": "2026-09-16T09:30:28Z",
  "references": [
    {
      "type": "ADVISORY",
      "url": "https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-85501"
    },
    {
      "type": "WEB",
      "url": "https://www.nlnetlabs.nl/downloads/unbound/CVE-2026-85501.txt"
    }
  ],
  "schema_version": "1.4.0",
  "severity": [
    {
      "score": "CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L",
      "type": "CVSS_V3"
    }
  ]
}

CVE-2026-85501 (GCVE-0-2026-85501)

Vulnerability from cvelistv5 – Published: 2026-09-16 08:32 – Updated: 2026-09-16 14:12

Title

Retrap: Novel Vulnerabilities to launch Algorithmic Complexity Attacks on DNSSEC

Summary

Severity

5.3 (Medium)


                        
                          CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L

SSVC

Exploitation: none Automatable: yes Technical Impact: partial

CISA Coordinator · CISA-ADP (v2.0.3)

Decision recorded 2026-09-16 14:10 UTC

CWE

CWE-770 - Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling

Assigner

NLnet Labs

References

1 reference

URL	Tags
https://www.nlnetlabs.nl/downloads/unbound/CVE-20…	vendor-advisory

Impacted products

1 product

Vendor	Product	Version
NLnet Labs	Unbound	Affected: 0 , < 1.26.1 (semver)

Date Public

2026-09-16 00:00

Credits

Zuyao Xu (Nankai University, AOSP Lab) Xiang Li (Nankai University, AOSP Lab) Qifan Zhang (Palo Alto Networks)

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JSON

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                "timestamp": "2026-09-16T14:10:48.623819Z",
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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.

Detection rules are retrieved from Rulezet.

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.

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.