CVE-2026-40622 (GCVE-0-2026-40622)

Vulnerability from cvelistv5 – Published: 2026-05-20 09:18 – Updated: 2026-05-20 12:12
VLAI
Title
Another 'ghost domain names' attack variant
Summary
NLnet Labs Unbound 1.16.2 up to and including version 1.25.0 has a vulnerability of the 'ghost domain names' family of attacks that could extend the ghost domain window by up to one cached TTL configured value. Similar to other 'ghost domain names' attacks, an adversary needs to control a (ghost) zone and be able to query a vulnerable Unbound. A single client NS query can cause Unbound to overwrite the cached expired parent-side referral NS rrset with the child-side apex NS rrset and essentially extend the ghost domain window by up to one cached TTL configured value ('cache-max-ttl'). In configurations where 'harden-referral-path: yes' is used (non-default configuration), no client NS query is required since Unbound implicitly performs that query. Unbound 1.25.1 contains a patch with a fix that does not allow extension of TTLs for (parent) NS records regardless of their trust.
Severity
6.6 (Medium)
CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:N/VC:N/VI:H/VA:N/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N/E:U/U:Amber
SSVC
Exploitation: none Automatable: yes Technical Impact: partial
CISA Coordinator · CISA-ADP (v2.0.3)
Decision recorded 2026-05-20 12:12 UTC
CWE
  • CWE-346 - Origin Validation Error
Assigner
References
Impacted products
Vendor Product Version CPE status
NLnet Labs Unbound Affected: 1.16.2 , < 1.25.1 (semver)
guessed Create a notification for this product.
Date Public
2026-05-20 00:00
Credits
Qifan Zhang (Palo Alto Networks)
Show details on NVD website
To clipboard 

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  • Seen: The vulnerability was mentioned, discussed, or observed by the user.
  • Confirmed: The vulnerability has been validated from an analyst's perspective.
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