CVE-2026-54478 PUBLISHED

DNS Cookie bypass when combined with proxy-protocol use

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

In NLnet Labs Unbound 1.18.0 up to and including 1.25.1, when Unbound listens on a 'proxy-protocol-port' interface with 'answer-cookie: yes', the RFC 9018 server-cookie SipHash is computed over the proxy's wire address instead of the PROXYv2-declared client. One server cookie obtained through a given proxy node therefore validates for every PROXYv2-declared source behind that node. On a UDP+proxy-protocol front, an off-path attacker can harvest one cookie with a single legitimate query, then replay it under any spoofed source and pass DNS Cookie checks that were deployed to defeat this in the first place.

Metrics

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

Product Status

Vendor NLnet Labs
Product Unbound
Versions Default: unaffected
  • affected from 1.18.0 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-290: Authentication Bypass by Spoofing CWE