CVE-2026-40622

Another 'ghost domain names' attack variant

Medium · published May 20, 2026

CVSS v4.0
6.6
EPSS
0%
Percentile
3.2
In the wild
Unconfirmed
What it is

NLnet Labs Unbound 1.16.2 up to and including version 1.25.0 has a vulnerability of the 'ghost domain names' family of attacks that could extend the ghost domain window by up to one cached TTL configured value. Similar to other 'ghost domain names' attacks, an adversary needs to control a (ghost) zone and be able to query a vulnerable Unbound. A single client NS query can cause Unbound to overwrite the cached expired parent-side referral NS rrset with the child-side apex NS rrset and essentially extend the ghost domain window by up to one cached TTL configured value ('cache-max-ttl'). In configurations where 'harden-referral-path: yes' is used (non-default configuration), no client NS query is required since Unbound implicitly performs that query. Unbound 1.25.1 contains a patch with a fix that does not allow extension of TTLs for (parent) NS records regardless of their trust.

The record
Technical detail
CVSS v4.0
6.6 · MEDIUM
Vector
CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:N/VC:N/VI:H/VA:N/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N/E:U/U:Amber
EPSS
0.00142 · 3.2th percentile
Published
2026-05-20T09:18Z
EPSS history
Timeline
  • 20 MAY 09:18Z
    Another 'ghost domain names' attack variant
    cvelistv5