REDHAT-BUG-2480127: Medium severity Nlnet Labs Unbound vulnerability

Published May 20, 2026
·
Updated

NLnet Labs Unbound 1.16.2 up to and including version 1.25.0 has a vulnerability of the 'ghost domain names' family of attacks that could extend the ghost domain window by up to one cached TTL configured value. Similar to other 'ghost domain names' attacks, an adversary needs to control a (ghost) zone and be able to query a vulnerable Unbound. A single client NS query can cause Unbound to overwrite the cached expired parent-side referral NS rrset with the child-side apex NS rrset and essentially extend the ghost domain window by up to one cached TTL configured value ('cache-max-ttl'). In configurations where 'harden-referral-path: yes' is used (non-default configuration), no client NS query is required since Unbound implicitly performs that query. Unbound 1.25.1 contains a patch with a fix that does not allow extension of TTLs for (parent) NS records regardless of their trust.

Affected Software

1 affected component
Nlnet Labs Unbound>=1.16.2<=1.25.0

Remediation

Recommended actions to resolve this vulnerability, in priority order.

  1. Upgrade

    Upgrade NLnet Labs Unbound to a version that resolves this vulnerability.

    Fixed in 1.25.1

Event History

May 20, 2026
Data Sourced
via Red Hat·10:01 AM
DescriptionSeverityAffected Software

Contact

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