CVE-2026-81642

nlnetlabs unbound

score 45Public PoC ×1CRITICAL 9.1

Summary

In NLnet Labs Unbound up to and including 1.26.0, a vulnerability was found in the DNSSEC validator that enables denial of service and possible remote code execution as a result of digesting DNSKEYs. A DNSKEY with an owner compression pointer to its own RDATA can overflow the digest buffer. Remote code execution is possible through attacker controlled data. An adversary can exploit the vulnerability by controlling a malicious zone and querying a vulnerable Unbound.

Published 2026-09-16 · first seen here 2026-10-10

Analysis & write-ups

No technical write-up from a research team yet. Contact Zero checks Unit 42, Google/Mandiant, Microsoft, Talos, CrowdStrike, Rapid7, watchTowr and others several times a day, plus NVD and CISA reference links.

Exploit availability

Public exploit code lowers the bar for attackers, so prioritise patching and hunting. These repositories are unverified. Fake PoCs that contain malware are common, so never run them outside an isolated lab.

suominen/CVE-2026-81642 · ★0 · created 2026-09-18

Where it shows in your logs

Server or web application · Memory corruption (overflow, use-after-free) medium confidence

What to look for

Crashes or restarts of the vulnerable process (Windows Error Reporting, core dumps), especially repeated ones
The vulnerable process spawning children it never normally starts
The application's process (w3wp.exe, java, tomcat, node, php-fpm, httpd, python) starting shells or LOLBins (cmd, powershell, sh, bash, curl, wget, certutil)
New script files in web roots (.jsp, .aspx, .php): a web shell
Requests to unusual URLs on the application from internet IPs right before any of the above
Outbound connections from the server to new external IPs

Data sources

Web server and WAF logs · ATT&CK DS0015 Application Log Content

Sentinel: W3CIISLogAppServiceHTTPLogsAzureDiagnostics (Application Gateway / Front Door WAF)_Im_WebSession
Splunk: Web.Webms:iis:autoaccess_combinedWAF / proxy sourcetypes
CrowdStrike: Falcon Next-Gen SIEM: third-party web / WAF / proxy logs

Process creation · ATT&CK DS0009 Process Creation

Sentinel: DeviceProcessEventsSecurityEvent (4688)Sysmon Event ID 1_Im_ProcessCreate
Splunk: Endpoint.ProcessesXmlWinEventLog:Microsoft-Windows-Sysmon/OperationalWinEventLog:Security (4688)
CrowdStrike: ProcessRollup2SyntheticProcessRollup2

File creation · ATT&CK DS0022 File Creation

Sentinel: DeviceFileEventsSysmon Event ID 11_Im_FileEvent
Splunk: Endpoint.FilesystemSysmon Event ID 11
CrowdStrike: NewExecutableWrittenNewScriptWritten*FileWritten events

Network connections · ATT&CK DS0029 Network Connection Creation / Network Traffic Flow

Sentinel: DeviceNetworkEventsCommonSecurityLog (firewall)_Im_NetworkSession
Splunk: Network_Traffic.All_TrafficFirewall sourcetypes (pan:traffic, fortigate_traffic, cisco:asa)
CrowdStrike: NetworkConnectIP4NetworkReceiveAcceptIP4NetworkConnectIP6

A generic baseline worked out from the product type and weakness (CWE-122), not a detection. Check table and field names against your environment. Hunt queries for Sigma, Splunk, Sentinel and CrowdStrike are coming.