CVE-2026-55990
Title: NLnet Labs Unbound DNSCrypt Garbage Dereference DoS
Proof Of Concept
No public PoC currently indexed for CVE-2026-55990.
Vulnerability Summary
CVE-2026-55990: In NLnet Labs Unbound 1.7.0 up to and including 1.25.1, when the 'dnscrypt:' clause lists more 'dnscrypt-provider-cert:' files than there are matching 'dnscrypt-secret-key:' files, Unbound fills only the matched prefix and leaves the tail slots at the '0xdb' fill that libsodium's allocator writes into every allocation. Unbound would then iterate over the number of cert files, not the actual slots, so it walks into a slot with garbage data filled with '0xdb' bytes. Any unauthenticated client that sends one UDP datagram of ≥ 68 bytes whose first 8 bytes are '0xdb' to 'dnscrypt-port' will use that garbage entry which leads to a garbage dereference killing the server. This is a silent faulty configuration that goes unnoticed until triggered with the right client query. Unbound needs to be compiled with DNSCrypt support ('--enable-dnscrypt').
Impacted Vendors
Reference Links
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
Associated Attack Patterns (CAPEC)
Total: PatternsNo specific attack patterns mapped.
CVE-2026-55990 Exploits & PoCs (Proof Of Concept)
No public PoCs found in our database for this CVE.
Vulnerability data updated via NVD.
Vulnerability data updated via NVD.
Vulnerability data updated via NVD.
Vulnerability data updated via NVD.
Attack Vector Matrix
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
Affected Stack
No specific products linked.