CVE-2026-77860

'serve-expired' can bypass Unbound 'wait-limit'

CVE-2026-77860 is fixed in unbound on 1 platform, first by DEBIAN-CVE-2026-77860, released September 19, 2026. It is not reported as exploited. Patch Radar priority: Routine.

Routine
CVSS
3.7
low
Exploitation
None reported
No vendor assessment
CISA KEV
Not listed
Not in the Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog
EPSS
0.0030
22nd percentile

In NLnetLabs Unbound 1.20.0 up to and including 1.26.0, a vulnerability on the 'serve-expired' code path can cause a double decrement on the 'wait-limit' counter per client IP essentially bypassing one of the counter measures that was introduced for DNSBomb (CVE-2024-33655). A malicious actor can exploit this by controlling an authoritative zone with short TTL, so cached entries expire quickly. Each 'slow' query, one the attacker's authoritative never answers, is followed by one query for an expired cached name, which is answered immediately via the 'serve-expired' path and decrements the counter twice. This second query was named 'pump'. By alternating slow queries and pumps, the attacker keeps the per-client counter at or below the configured 'wait-limit' indefinitely, and can hold an arbitrary number of pending queries from a single source IP, up to the global mesh quota (num-queries-per-thread); eventually bypassing one of the counter measures introduced for DNSBomb (CVE-2024-33655). This vulnerability is present on the 'serve-expired' code path.

Where it's fixed

ProductFixed inFixReleased
Linux
unbound · Debian 13.5 (trixie) 1.26.1-0+deb13u1 DEBIAN-CVE-2026-77860 Sep 19, 2026
unbound · Debian 14 1.26.1-1 DEBIAN-CVE-2026-77860 Sep 19, 2026
unbound · opensuse-leap 16.0 1.26.1-160000.1.1 OPENSUSE-SU-2026:22082-1 Nov 7, 2026
unbound · sles 15.6 1.26.1-150600.23.24.1 SUSE-SU-2026:4620-1 Nov 7, 2026
unbound · sles 15.7 1.26.1-150600.23.24.1 SUSE-SU-2026:4620-1 Nov 7, 2026
unbound · sles 16.0 1.26.1-160000.1.1 SUSE-SU-2026:24226-1 Nov 7, 2026

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