Answer in brief
CVE-2026-96405 records a Medium severity (CVSS 5.3) vulnerability in Aggregate DNS name chained pointer decompression work leads to degradation of service.. The current sources do not mark it as known exploited. The current feed maps NLnet Labs/Unbound (generic). Check affected ranges and fixed versions before updating.
Analysis pending evidence review
HOL Guard separates source facts from reviewed analysis. See the methodology.
CVSS is 5.3. The current sources do not mark it as known exploited. Treat this as a source-backed prioritization signal, not a statement about your environment.
Analysis status
Analysis pending evidence review
Factual feed record only; HOL analysis is not approved for indexing. Read the methodology.
The current feed maps NLnet Labs/Unbound (generic). Check affected ranges and fixed versions before updating.
| Package | Affected range | Fixed version |
|---|---|---|
| NLnet Labs/Unboundgeneric | >=0 <1.26.2 | 1.26.2 |
Published upstream
Oct 21, 2026
Evidence: source:cvelist:source_dates:source-dates:recordSource modified
Oct 21, 2026
Evidence: source:cvelist:source_dates:source-dates:recordFirst seen by HOL
Oct 21, 2026
NLnet Labs Unbound up to and including version 1.26.1 limits compression-pointer traversal for each individual domain-name operation but has no aggregate inbound decompression-work budget. Many chained compression pointers in a message results in a lot of CPU usage following them. A malicious actor with recursive-query access and control of an ordinarily delegated authority that serves specially crafted replies can exploit the vulnerability and degrade Unbound's general performance.
Quoted source text, attributed separately from HOL analysis.