Use-after-free in DoQ stream output buffer on reset re-transmission (NLnet Labs Unbound)

CVE-2026-78227
MEDIUM 6.5

At a glance

Source
NVD
EPSS
EPSS 0.34 % Β· percentile 27 ()
State
PUBLISHED
Published
Updated
Assigner
NLnet Labs
NVD status
Analyzed

Description

NLnet Labs Unbound 1.22.0 up to and including 1.26.1, has a use-after-free vulnerability when compiled for DNS-over-QUIC support with '--with-libngtcp2'. Each DoQ stream owns an output buffer that holds the DNS response. ngtcp2's retransmission buffer keeps a shallow pointer into the output buffer for as long as a STREAM frame may be resent. On a client RESET_STREAM, the output buffer is freed but ngtcp2 still holds the matching retransmission entries. The next PTO timeout makes ngtcp2 re-encode the STREAM frame and copy from the freed buffer. A malicious actor that can query Unbound over DoQ and that withholds ACKs, sends RESET_STREAM, and waits for PTO, reaches this use-after-free with no privilege. This leads to retransmissions against freed memory and eventually an abnormal server exit under a 20-query spray.

Weaknesses (CWE)

References

Scores

VersionScoreVectorScored by
CVSS 3.1MEDIUM 6.5CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:LNLnet Labs
CVSS 3.1MEDIUM 6.5CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:LNVD Β· sep@nlnetlabs.nl (Secondary)

European references

Affected configurations (NVD CPE)

Affected products

ProductVersions
NLnet Labs Β· Unboundaffected 1.22.0 < 1.26.1

Sources

SourceLicence
CVE List (CVEProject cvelistV5)CVE Program Terms of Use
EPSS (FIRST.org)FIRST β€” attribution requested
ENISA EUVDENISA β€” reproduction authorised, source acknowledged
NVD (NIST) via fkie-cad/nvd-json-data-feedsPublic domain β€” this product uses data from the NVD API but is not endorsed or certified by the NVD