Unbound 1.25.0-1.25.1 MemCorrupt via respip/dns64 shallow copy
CVE-2026-52863 Published on July 22, 2026

Memory corruption could lead to crash and denial of service
In NLnet Labs Unbound 1.25.0 up to and including 1.25.1, a fix that makes the 'respip' and 'dns64' modules work together, creates a shallow copy of the view name in effect that could lead to memory corruption if the owner of the original view name is jostled out when Unbound is under pressure. Unbound needs to be configured with one of 'respip'/'rpz' modules, together with a module that can attach subqueries (respip CNAME redirection, dns64, subnetcache) and a configured 'access-control-view' while Unbound is under pressure so that joslte logic kicks in and starts dropping slow queries. The subquery is getting a shallow copy of the view name and if the super query which owns the view name is jostled out, memory corruption can occur. Likelihood of a crash is low, since it relies heavily on the underlying memory allocator and the memory layout. Debug memory builds (e.g., ASAN) that catch the free terminate the server.

Vendor Advisory NVD

Timeline

Issue reported by Qifan Zhang

NLnet Labs shares patch 31 days later.

Qifan Zhang verifies patch 3 days later.

Fixes released with version 1.25.2 41 days later.

Weakness Type

What is a Dangling pointer Vulnerability?

Referencing memory after it has been freed can cause a program to crash, use unexpected values, or execute code.

CVE-2026-52863 has been classified to as a Dangling pointer vulnerability or weakness.


Affected Versions

NLnet Labs Unbound:

Exploit Probability

EPSS
0.25%
Percentile
16.03%

EPSS (Exploit Prediction Scoring System) scores estimate the probability that a vulnerability will be exploited in the wild within the next 30 days. The percentile shows you how this score compares to all other vulnerabilities.