Description
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.
Affected products
nlnetlabs: unbound
References1
- www.nlnetlabs.nl/downloads/unbound/CVE-2026-56416.txt Vendor Advisory
Metrics
- CVSS 3.1
-
4.8
MEDIUM
Score source: CNA
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:L/A:L - EPSS — exploit probability
- 0% percentile: 2 · as of 14 November 2026
- CWE
- CWE-354
Could this be exploited in your environment?
A patch closes the known hole. A penetration test shows what an attacker can still reach — with proof.