CVE-2026-32792: nlnet labs unbound Out-of-bounds Read

Vulnerability summary

CVE-2026-32792 is a medium (CVSS 5.3) Out-of-bounds Read vulnerability in nlnet labs unbound. EPSS estimates a 0.40% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 32.7% of scored vulnerabilities.

Timeline

1. 20-05-2026
   PublishedVulnerability first disclosed.
2. 20-05-2026
   Last modifiedVulnerability information updated.

Description

NLnet Labs Unbound 1.6.2 up to and including version 1.25.0 has a denial of service vulnerability when compiled with DNSCrypt support ('--enable-dnscrypt'). A bad DNSCrypt query could underflow Unbound's DNSCrypt packet reading procedure that may lead to heap overflow. A malicious actor can exploit the vulnerability with a single bad DNSCrypt query that its decrypted plaintext consists entirely of '0x00' bytes and does not contain the expected '0x80' marker. Unbound would then start reading more bytes than necessary until it finds a non-'0x00' byte. Based on the underlying memory allocator and the memory layout, it could lead to heap overflow while reading followed by a crash. Likelihood of a crash is low, since it relies heavily on the underlying memory allocator and the memory layout. If the heap overflow does not happen, Unbound's later packet checks will deny the packet. Unbound 1.25.1 contains a patch with a fix to bound reading in the given buffer space.

• CWE-125Out-of-bounds ReadThe product reads data past the end, or before the beginning, of the intended buffer.
• CWE-166Improper Handling of Missing Special ElementThe product receives input from an upstream component, but it does not handle or incorrectly handles when an expected special element is missing.