Hickory DNS hickory-proto through 0.26.0-alpha.1 and hickory-net 0.26.0-beta.1 before 0.26.2 contain a DNSSEC validation flaw in the validating recursor's NSEC handler that accepts parent-side ancestor-delegation NSEC records as proof of nonexistence for names below the zone cut. An on-path attacker, rogue parent nameserver, or attacker winning a port and TXID race can deliver one forged NXDOMAIN response built from genuinely signed parent NSEC records, causing authenticated denial of existing child-zone names cached for the negative TTL.