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CVE-2025-5994

Cache poisoning via the ECS-enabled Rebirthday Attack

Published
Last modified
published
Not listed in CISA KEV
Fix
Fixed in 1.23.0
None on Exploit-DB, Metasploit or GitHub
  • Exploitation: none
  • Automatable: yes
  • Technical impact: partial

Summary

A multi-vendor cache poisoning vulnerability named 'Rebirthday Attack' has been discovered in caching resolvers that support EDNS Client Subnet (ECS). Unbound is also vulnerable when compiled with ECS support, i.e., '--enable-subnet', AND configured to send ECS information along with queries to upstream name servers, i.e., at least one of the 'send-client-subnet', 'client-subnet-zone' or 'client-subnet-always-forward' options is used. Resolvers supporting ECS need to segregate outgoing queries to accommodate for different outgoing ECS information. This re-opens up resolvers to a birthday paradox attack (Rebirthday Attack) that tries to match the DNS transaction ID in order to cache non-ECS poisonous replies.

Timeline

  1. CVE published
  2. CISA SSVC assessment

    Exploitation: none · Automatable: yes · Technical impact: partial

  3. Record last updated

Affected versions

  • NLnet Labs Unbound

    From 1.6.2 · fixed in 1.23.0

References 1

nlnetlabs.nl