Improper access control in Unbound - CVE-2026-44621

 

Improper access control in Unbound - CVE-2026-44621

Published: July 23, 2026


Vulnerability identifier: #VU139236
CSH Severity: Medium
CVSS v4: 8.7 [CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:N/VC:N/VI:N/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N]
CVE-ID: CVE-2026-44621
CWE-ID: CWE-284
Exploitation vector: Remote access
Exploit availability: No public exploit available

Vulnerability details

The vulnerability allows a remote attacker to cause a denial of service.

The vulnerability exists due to improper access control in the libworker_alloc_cleanup function call allow list in libunbound when processing enough wrong-transaction-ID UDP replies to cross the unwanted-reply-threshold. A remote attacker can send crafted UDP replies to cause a denial of service.

Only applications using libunbound with 'unwanted-reply-threshold' set to a non-zero value are vulnerable. Unbound itself is not affected.


Affected software

Unbound
SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15 SP5
SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15 SP4
SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15 SP6
SUSE Linux Enterprise High Performance Computing ESPOS 15
SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15
SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for SAP Applications 15
SUSE Linux Enterprise High Performance Computing LTSS 15
SUSE Linux Enterprise High Performance Computing 15
SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 15
SUSE Linux Enterprise Real Time 15
SUSE Linux Enterprise Micro
SUSE Package Hub 15
Basesystem Module
openSUSE Leap
openEuler
Fedora
unbound
python3-unbound
unbound-debuginfo
unbound-debugsource
unbound-devel
unbound-help
unbound-libs
unbound-anchor
unbound-utils
libunbound8
libunbound8-debuginfo
unbound-anchor-debuginfo
unbound-munin
unbound-python
unbound-python-debuginfo
libunbound-devel-mini-debuginfo
libunbound-devel-mini-debugsource
libunbound-devel-mini

How to mitigate CVE-2026-44621

Install security update from vendor's website.

Unbound - update to 1.25.2
unbound - addressed in versions 1.11.0-25, 1.13.2-25, 1.17.1-19, 1.17.1-20
python3-unbound - addressed in versions 1.11.0-25, 1.13.2-25, 1.17.1-19, 1.17.1-20
unbound-debuginfo - addressed in versions 1.11.0-25, 1.13.2-25, 1.17.1-19, 1.17.1-20
unbound-debugsource - addressed in versions 1.11.0-25, 1.13.2-25, 1.17.1-19, 1.17.1-20
unbound-devel - addressed in versions 1.11.0-25, 1.13.2-25, 1.17.1-19, 1.17.1-20
unbound-help - addressed in versions 1.11.0-25, 1.13.2-25, 1.17.1-19, 1.17.1-20
unbound-libs - addressed in versions 1.11.0-25, 1.13.2-25, 1.17.1-19, 1.17.1-20
unbound-anchor - addressed in versions 1.13.2-25, 1.17.1-19, 1.17.1-20
unbound-utils - addressed in versions 1.17.1-19, 1.17.1-20
unbound - update to 1.25.2-1.fc43
libunbound8 - addressed in versions 1.25.2-150100.10.28.1, 1.25.2-150600.23.19.1
unbound-devel - addressed in versions 1.25.2-150100.10.28.1, 1.25.2-150600.23.19.1
libunbound8-debuginfo - addressed in versions 1.25.2-150100.10.28.1, 1.25.2-150600.23.19.1
unbound-anchor - addressed in versions 1.25.2-150100.10.28.1, 1.25.2-150600.23.19.1
unbound-debugsource - addressed in versions 1.25.2-150100.10.28.1, 1.25.2-150600.23.19.1
unbound-anchor-debuginfo - addressed in versions 1.25.2-150100.10.28.1, 1.25.2-150600.23.19.1
unbound-debuginfo - addressed in versions 1.25.2-150100.10.28.1, 1.25.2-150600.23.19.1
unbound-munin - update to 1.25.2-150600.23.19.1
unbound-python - update to 1.25.2-150600.23.19.1
unbound - update to 1.25.2-150600.23.19.1
unbound-python-debuginfo - update to 1.25.2-150600.23.19.1
libunbound-devel-mini-debuginfo - update to 1.25.2-150600.23.19.1
libunbound-devel-mini-debugsource - update to 1.25.2-150600.23.19.1
libunbound-devel-mini - update to 1.25.2-150600.23.19.1

External References

Related Security Bulletins