Description
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').
Affected products
nlnetlabs: unbound
References1
- www.nlnetlabs.nl/downloads/unbound/CVE-2026-55990.txt Vendor Advisory
Metrics
- CVSS 3.1
-
5.9
MEDIUM
Score source: CNA
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H - EPSS — exploit probability
- 0% percentile: 16 · as of 14 November 2026
- CWE
- CWE-457
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