CVE-2026-50252

What it is

In NLnet Labs Unbound 1.4.22 up to and including 1.25.1, UDP source port is randomized and intended to serve as a secret value that increases the entropy of DNS transactions. When resolver load balancing policies depend on the source port while their outcome is revealed this secrecy is undermined. The vulnerability arises when the load balancing policy is consistent with respect to the incoming source UDP port and IP address while heavily depending on the incoming source UDP port as a randomization source. When the SO_REUSEPORT configuration option is enabled ('so-reuseport: yes') in Unbound (by default), it meets these conditions, making it vulnerable for DNS cache poisoning attacks. Upon startup, Unbound randomly partitions the available UDP source port space into disjoint subsets of (almost) equal size, assigning each subset to a specific worker thread. When an incoming DNS query is received, the kernel’s SO_REUSEPORT load balancing mechanism deterministically assigns the query to a socket associated with a particular thread. All outgoing DNS queries generated during the resolution of that request use source ports selected exclusively from the port subset assigned to the corresponding thread. Since these port subsets are disjoint across threads, the source port observed in a resolver’s outgoing query to an authoritative name server serves as a reliable indicator of the worker thread that processed the original client query. A malicious actor can acquire the mapping between incoming UDP source ports (for a given fixed source IP address) and Unbound worker threads and leverage it to conduct DNS cache poisoning attacks by effectively lowering the random port population per thread.

At a glance

Exploitability

Can be exploited from the same network segment without logging in. High risk of data tampering.

Exploit odds

0.2% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days (EPSS).

Fix

A patch, advisory or fixed version is referenced. Upgrade or apply it.

Timeline

1. 2026-07-22 14:17 UTC PublishedDisclosed publicly on CVE.org and NVD
2. 2026-10-24 13:10 UTC Last updatedMost recent change to the record

Details

Published

2026-07-22 14:17 UTC

Last modified

2026-10-24 13:10 UTC

Exploit probability

0.2% · EPSS, next 30 days

Weakness

CWE-349

Record status

Analyzed

Affected

• Nlnetlabs Unbound < 1.25.2

Attack profile CVSS 4.0 · 5.7

Attack vector

Adjacent network

Complexity

Low

Attack requirements

Present

Privileges needed

None

User interaction

None

Confidentiality

None

Integrity

High

Availability

None