In Unbound 1.9.0 up to and including 1.25.1, when a DNSCrypt query is received over TCP, the routine that encrypts the reply in place fails to bound the reply length against the destination buffer size. The size clamp that protects the UDP path is not applied on the TCP path, so a reply larger than 65504 bytes is shifted forward by 48 bytes inside a buffer of capacity equal to 'msg-buffer-size', writing past the end of the heap allocation. A single malicious encrypted query crashes the resolver and lead to denial of service. This vulnerability needs Unbound to be compiled with DNSCrypt support ('--enable-dnscrypt') and the 'dnscrypt:' clause to be configured and enabled for the listening interfaces.
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Fixes
Solution
This issue is fixed starting with version 1.25.2
Workaround
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References
History
Wed, 22 Jul 2026 15:30:00 +0000
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Wed, 22 Jul 2026 13:30:00 +0000
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| Description | In Unbound 1.9.0 up to and including 1.25.1, when a DNSCrypt query is received over TCP, the routine that encrypts the reply in place fails to bound the reply length against the destination buffer size. The size clamp that protects the UDP path is not applied on the TCP path, so a reply larger than 65504 bytes is shifted forward by 48 bytes inside a buffer of capacity equal to 'msg-buffer-size', writing past the end of the heap allocation. A single malicious encrypted query crashes the resolver and lead to denial of service. This vulnerability needs Unbound to be compiled with DNSCrypt support ('--enable-dnscrypt') and the 'dnscrypt:' clause to be configured and enabled for the listening interfaces. | |
| Title | Packet of death for DNSCrypt over TCP | |
| Weaknesses | CWE-122 CWE-787 |
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cvssV3_1
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Status: PUBLISHED
Assigner: NLnet Labs
Published:
Updated: 2026-07-22T14:31:26.565Z
Reserved: 2026-06-22T10:11:10.532Z
Link: CVE-2026-40691
Updated: 2026-07-22T14:30:38.700Z
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