CVE-2026-18664 PUBLISHED

Wrong interpretation of ACL ranges

Assigner: NLnet Labs
Reserved: 03.08.2026 Published: 26.08.2026 Updated: 26.08.2026

When ranges are used for access control (i.e. of the form 1.2.3.4-1.2.3.25), because NSD wrongly compares the IP address with the range on little endian systems, IPs that were meant to be allowed may be denied, and, IPs that were meant to be denied access could be allowed. An IPv4 address is compared with IPv4 ranges as unsigned 32 bit numbers directly with the endianness of the host, but the values to compare are in network byte order (big-endian). With IPv6 addresses the comparison is done in 4 times a unsigned 32 bit number comparison, again with the endianness of the host where all values are actually in network bye order.

Metrics

CVSS Vector: CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:P/PR:N/UI:N/VC:H/VI:N/VA:N/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N
CVSS Score: 8.2

IP range access control restrictions can be bypassed for some unintended IP addresses on little endian systems

Product Status

Vendor NLnet Labs
Product NSD
Versions Default: unaffected
  • affected from 3.0.0 to 4.15.1 (excl.)

Solutions

This issue is fixed in 4.15.1 and all later versions.

Credits

  • Qifan Zhang from Palo Alto Networks finder
  • Claude and Ada Logics finder

References

Problem Types

  • CWE-284 Improper Access Control CWE
  • CWE-697 Incorrect Comparison CWE