Vulnerability Database

362,873

Total vulnerabilities in the database

CVE-2026-50252 — nlnetlabs / unbound

Acceptance of Extraneous Untrusted Data With Trusted Data

In NLnet Labs Unbound 1.4.22 up to and including 1.25.1, UDP source port is randomized and intended to serve as a secret value that increases the entropy of DNS transactions. When resolver load balancing policies depend on the source port while their outcome is revealed this secrecy is undermined. The vulnerability arises when the load balancing policy is consistent with respect to the incoming source UDP port and IP address while heavily depending on the incoming source UDP port as a randomization source. When the SO_REUSEPORT configuration option is enabled ('so-reuseport: yes') in Unbound (by default), it meets these conditions, making it vulnerable for DNS cache poisoning attacks. Upon startup, Unbound randomly partitions the available UDP source port space into disjoint subsets of (almost) equal size, assigning each subset to a specific worker thread. When an incoming DNS query is received, the kernel’s SO_REUSEPORT load balancing mechanism deterministically assigns the query to a socket associated with a particular thread. All outgoing DNS queries generated during the resolution of that request use source ports selected exclusively from the port subset assigned to the corresponding thread. Since these port subsets are disjoint across threads, the source port observed in a resolver’s outgoing query to an authoritative name server serves as a reliable indicator of the worker thread that processed the original client query. A malicious actor can acquire the mapping between incoming UDP source ports (for a given fixed source IP address) and Unbound worker threads and leverage it to conduct DNS cache poisoning attacks by effectively lowering the random port population per thread.

  • Published: Jul 22, 2026
  • Updated: Jul 25, 2026
  • CVE: CVE-2026-50252
  • Severity: Critical
  • Exploit:
  • CISA KEV:

CVSS v3:

  • Severity: Critical
  • Score: 9.3
  • AV:A/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:C/C:N/I:H/A:H

CWEs:

Frequently Asked Questions

A security vulnerability is a weakness in software, hardware, or configuration that can be exploited to compromise confidentiality, integrity, or availability. Many vulnerabilities are tracked as CVEs (Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures), which provide a standardized identifier so teams can coordinate patching, mitigation, and risk assessment across tools and vendors.

CVSS (Common Vulnerability Scoring System) estimates technical severity, but it doesn't automatically equal business risk. Prioritize using context like internet exposure, affected asset criticality, known exploitation (proof-of-concept or in-the-wild), and whether compensating controls exist. A "Medium" CVSS on an exposed, production system can be more urgent than a "Critical" on an isolated, non-production host.

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Recurring findings usually come from incomplete Asset Discovery, inconsistent patch management, inherited images, and configuration drift. In modern environments, you also need to watch the software supply chain: dependencies, containers, build pipelines, and third-party services can reintroduce the same weakness even after you patch a single host. Unknown or unmanaged assets (often called Shadow IT) are a common reason the same issues resurface.

Use a simple, repeatable triage model: focus first on externally exposed assets, high-value systems (identity, VPN, email, production), vulnerabilities with known exploits, and issues that enable remote code execution or privilege escalation. Then enforce patch SLAs and track progress using consistent metrics so remediation is steady, not reactive.

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