Vulnerability Details CVE-2026-44687
In NLnet Labs Unbound 1.13.2 up to and including 1.25.1, stub or forward zones where the name is below an intermediate labed below a DNSSEC signed zone could be shadowed by the intermediate label's secure NXDOMAIN answer from the parent. This is caused by an off-by-one error in 'harden-below-nxdomain' logic; enabled by default. It effectively bypasses the configuration and the configured stub/forward zone is never contacted. 'harden-below-nxdomain' does an upward DNS cache walk together with a delegation point guard that does not allow NXDOMAIN synthesis above stub/forward zones. The guard tests the domain name but before stripping a label. This results in an iteration where the domain name equals the configured stub/forward zone apex that passes the guard, strips one more label, and probes the cache at the apex's immediate public parent. If that parent has a cached DNSSEC-secure NXDOMAIN, which it will for any private namespace nested two or more labels under a signed public name, the walk returns it and the configured stub/forward upstream is never contacted. This can only be triggered by the query for the intermediate label (between the stub/forward apex and the DNSSEC parent zone).
Exploit prediction scoring system (EPSS) score
EPSS Score 0.002
EPSS Ranking 13.5%
CVSS Severity
CVSS v3 Score 3.7
Products affected by CVE-2026-44687
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cpe:2.3:a:nlnetlabs:unbound:1.13.2
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cpe:2.3:a:nlnetlabs:unbound:1.14.0
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cpe:2.3:a:nlnetlabs:unbound:1.15.0
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cpe:2.3:a:nlnetlabs:unbound:1.16.0
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cpe:2.3:a:nlnetlabs:unbound:1.16.1
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cpe:2.3:a:nlnetlabs:unbound:1.16.2
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cpe:2.3:a:nlnetlabs:unbound:1.16.3
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cpe:2.3:a:nlnetlabs:unbound:1.17.0
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cpe:2.3:a:nlnetlabs:unbound:1.17.1
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cpe:2.3:a:nlnetlabs:unbound:1.18.0
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cpe:2.3:a:nlnetlabs:unbound:1.19.0
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cpe:2.3:a:nlnetlabs:unbound:1.19.1
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cpe:2.3:a:nlnetlabs:unbound:1.19.2
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cpe:2.3:a:nlnetlabs:unbound:1.19.3
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cpe:2.3:a:nlnetlabs:unbound:1.20.0
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cpe:2.3:a:nlnetlabs:unbound:1.21.0
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cpe:2.3:a:nlnetlabs:unbound:1.21.1
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cpe:2.3:a:nlnetlabs:unbound:1.22.0
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cpe:2.3:a:nlnetlabs:unbound:1.23.0
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cpe:2.3:a:nlnetlabs:unbound:1.23.1
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cpe:2.3:a:nlnetlabs:unbound:1.24.0
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cpe:2.3:a:nlnetlabs:unbound:1.24.1
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cpe:2.3:a:nlnetlabs:unbound:1.24.2
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cpe:2.3:a:nlnetlabs:unbound:1.25.0
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cpe:2.3:a:nlnetlabs:unbound:1.25.1