CVE-2026-33278

critical

Published 2026-05-20 · Modified 2026-05-20

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CVSS v3

9.8

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

CVSS v4 NEW

9.1

CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:N/VC:H/VI:H/VA:H/SC:H/SI:H/SA:H/E:U/CR:X/IR:X/AR:X/MAV:X/MAC:X/MAT:X/MPR:X/MUI:X/MVC:X/MVI:X/MVA:X/MSC:X/MSI:X/MSA:X/S:X/AU:X/R:X/V:X/RE:X/U:Red

VIR risk

9.8

Description

NLnet Labs Unbound 1.19.1 up to and including version 1.25.0 has a vulnerability in the DNSSEC validator that enables denial of service and possible remote code execution as a result of deep copying a data structure and erroneously overwriting a destination pointer. An adversary can exploit the vulnerability by controlling a malicious signed zone and querying a vulnerable Unbound. When DS sub-queries need to suspend validation due to NSEC3 computational budget exhaustion (introduced in Unbound 1.19.1), Unbound deep-copies response messages to preserve them across memory region teardown. A struct-assignment bug overwrites the destination's pointer with the source's pointer. After the sub-query region is freed, the resumed validator dereferences this dangling pointer, triggering a crash or potentially enabling arbitrary code execution. Unbound 1.25.1 contains a patch with a fix to preserve the correct pointer when deep copying the data structure.

Predictions

Exploit likelihood

97%

Patch ETA

—

Heuristic predictions, AS-IS, for prioritization only.

Mitigations

No mitigations published for this CVE yet.

The vendor-content worker queues fetches as references arrive (check back in a few minutes). Or — if you've already worked around this in production — publish your fix to the community-verified tier.

✚ Propose a mitigation on Community → Mitigations published via the community go through AI scoring + 2 human reviewers + 7-day silent objection window before landing here with source_tier=community-verified.

OS impact

SUSE Affected 1 release

Version	Status	Fixed in
—	Affected	—

Windows Affected 1 release

Version	Status	Fixed in
—	Affected	—

Debian Mixed 5 releases

Version	Status	Fixed in
trixie	Fixed	`1.22.0-2+deb13u3`
sid	Fixed	`1.25.1-1`
forky	Fixed	`1.25.1-1`
bullseye	Affected	—
bookworm	Affected	—

Application impact

Vendor	Product	Versions	Fixed
nlnetlabs	unbound	`{"startIncluding":"1.19.1","endExcluding":"1.25.1"}`	`1.25.1`

References

CWEs

CWE-416 CWE-672

Community-verified mitigations for this CVE will appear above when contributors publish them.

Verify integrity in audit chain (admin only). AS-IS.