Vulnerability Report

CVE-2026-56416

Title: NLnet Labs Unbound Heap Buffer Overflow

Arbitrary File Access

Proof Of Concept

No public PoC currently indexed for CVE-2026-56416.

CWE Category CWE-354
Published Date Jul 22, 2026
Modified Date Jul 24, 2026
Exploit Status Not Found
Score 4.8 CVSS v3.1
Exploit Probability (EPSS)
0.12%

Vulnerability Summary

CVE-2026-56416: In NLnet Labs Unbound up to and including version 1.25.1, when the validator builds the canonical RDATA form for an RRSIG-covered PX/RP/MINFO/SOA RRset, it computes the address of the second embedded domain name as 'datstart + dname_valid(datstart, ...)' and passes it straight to 'query_dname_tolower()' without checking that a second name is actually present in the RDATA. The wire-format parser accepts multi-dname RRs whose RDATA ends after the first name, so an attacker who runs a DNSSEC-signed authoritative server can deliver a record with an absent second domain name (e.g. SOA record) and cause 'query_dname_tolower()' to walk label-by-label through stale bytes in the per-worker 'env->scratch_buffer', past the end of that heap allocation if 'msg-buffer-size' has been lowered from the default. This leads to heap buffer overflow and on a release build the outcome relies heavily on the contents of the buffer tail and the adjacent heap chunk.

CVSS v3.1
Source Entity [email protected]
Severity MEDIUM
4.8
Attack Vector
NETWORK
Complexity
HIGH
Privileges
N/A
Interaction
NONE
Confidentiality
N/A
Integrity
N/A
Availability
N/A
Scope
UNCHANGED
RAW VECTOR CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:L/A:L

Associated Attack Patterns (CAPEC)

Total: Patterns

CVE-2026-56416 Exploits & PoCs (Proof Of Concept)

No public PoCs found in our database for this CVE.

MODIFIED

Vulnerability data updated via NVD.

MODIFIED

Vulnerability data updated via NVD.

MODIFIED

Vulnerability data updated via NVD.

MODIFIED

Vulnerability data updated via NVD.

Attack Vector Matrix

Access Vector NETWORK
Complexity HIGH
Privileges N/A
Interaction NONE
CVSS Vector String CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:L/A:L

Affected Stack

No specific products linked.