NLnet Labs Unbound up to and including version 1.25.0 has a vulnerability in the jostle logic that could defeat its purpose and degrade resolution performance. Retransmits of the same query could renew the age of slow running queries and not allow the jostle logic to see them as aged and potential targets for replacement with new queries. An adversary who can query a vulnerable Unbound and who can control a domain name server that replies slowly and/or maliciously to Unbound's queries can exploit the vulnerability and degrade the resolution performance of Unbound. When Unbound's 'num-queries-per-thread' reaches its limit, the jostle logic kicks in. When a new query comes in, half of the available queries that are also slow to resolve are candidates for replacement. The vulnerability then happens because duplicate queries that need resolution would skew the aging result by using the timestamp of the latest duplicate query instead of the original one that started the resolution effort. Cache and local data response performance remains unaffected. Coordinated attacks could raise this to a denial of resolution service. Unbound 1.25.1 contains a patch with a fix to attach an initial, non-updatable start time for incoming queries that allow the jostle logic to work as intended.

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Fixes

Solution

This issue is fixed starting with version 1.25.1


Workaround

No workaround given by the vendor.

History

Wed, 20 May 2026 10:00:00 +0000

Type Values Removed Values Added
Description NLnet Labs Unbound up to and including version 1.25.0 has a vulnerability in the jostle logic that could defeat its purpose and degrade resolution performance. Retransmits of the same query could renew the age of slow running queries and not allow the jostle logic to see them as aged and potential targets for replacement with new queries. An adversary who can query a vulnerable Unbound and who can control a domain name server that replies slowly and/or maliciously to Unbound's queries can exploit the vulnerability and degrade the resolution performance of Unbound. When Unbound's 'num-queries-per-thread' reaches its limit, the jostle logic kicks in. When a new query comes in, half of the available queries that are also slow to resolve are candidates for replacement. The vulnerability then happens because duplicate queries that need resolution would skew the aging result by using the timestamp of the latest duplicate query instead of the original one that started the resolution effort. Cache and local data response performance remains unaffected. Coordinated attacks could raise this to a denial of resolution service. Unbound 1.25.1 contains a patch with a fix to attach an initial, non-updatable start time for incoming queries that allow the jostle logic to work as intended.
Title Jostle logic bypass degrades resolution performance
Weaknesses CWE-440
References
Metrics cvssV4_0

{'score': 6.9, 'vector': 'CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:N/VC:N/VI:N/VA:L/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N/U:Amber'}


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cve-icon MITRE

Status: PUBLISHED

Assigner: NLnet Labs

Published:

Updated: 2026-05-20T09:19:37.920Z

Reserved: 2026-05-07T10:07:51.811Z

Link: CVE-2026-42534

cve-icon Vulnrichment

No data.

cve-icon NVD

Status : Received

Published: 2026-05-20T10:16:27.477

Modified: 2026-05-20T10:16:27.477

Link: CVE-2026-42534

cve-icon Redhat

No data.

cve-icon OpenCVE Enrichment

Updated: 2026-05-20T11:30:26Z

Weaknesses