CVE-2026-41637 PUBLISHED

Degradation of resolution service from improperly accounted client-terminated DNS-over-QUIC queries

Assigner: NLnet Labs
Reserved: 22.06.2026 Published: 22.07.2026 Updated: 22.07.2026

In NLnet Labs Unbound 1.22.0 up to and including 1.25.1, client terminated DNS-over-QUIC (DoQ) queries are not accounted properly by Unbound resulting in low-cost inflation of the waiting number of replies for already in-flight resolution queries. This results in degradation of resolution service for new clients for already in-flight queries. A malicious actor can exploit the vulnerability by issuing DoQ queries for query names that need resolution and proceeding on immediately terminating the query by one of STOP_SENDING/RESET_STREAM/CONNECTION_CLOSE QUIC frames. Those terminated DoQ queries are not properly counted for and keep inflating the number of waiting replies for in-flight queries. When the maximum is reached, it results in silent query drops for new clients needing resolution for already in-flight queries. This vulnerability needs Unbound to be compiled with DoQ support ('--with-libngtcp2') and the 'quic-port' to be configured for the listening interfaces. Additionally, a malicious actor needs access to multiple source IPs to bypass the by-default configured 'wait-limit' option.

Metrics

CVSS Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L
CVSS Score: 3.7

Unbound compiled with DoQ support ('--with-libngtcp2')

Product Status

Vendor NLnet Labs
Product Unbound
Versions Default: unaffected
  • affected from 1.22.0 to 1.25.2 (excl.)

Solutions

This issue is fixed starting with version 1.25.2

Credits

  • Qifan Zhang (Palo Alto Networks) finder

References

Problem Types

  • CWE-772: Missing Release of Resource after Effective Lifetime CWE