Off-by-one error in 'harden-below-nxdomain' logic can shadow a stub/forward zone by a legitimate parent's NXDOMAIN

Summary

In NLnet Labs Unbound 1.13.2 up to and including 1.25.1, stub or forward zones where the name is below an intermediate labed below a DNSSEC signed zone could be shadowed by the intermediate label's secure NXDOMAIN answer from the parent. This is caused by an off-by-one error in 'harden-below-nxdomain' logic; enabled by default. It effectively bypasses the configuration and the configured stub/forward zone is never contacted. 'harden-below-nxdomain' does an upward DNS cache walk together with a delegation point guard that does not allow NXDOMAIN synthesis above stub/forward zones. The guard tests the domain name but before stripping a label. This results in an iteration where the domain name equals the configured stub/forward zone apex that passes the guard, strips one more label, and probes the cache at the apex's immediate public parent. If that parent has a cached DNSSEC-secure NXDOMAIN, which it will for any private namespace nested two or more labels under a signed public name, the walk returns it and the configured stub/forward upstream is never contacted. This can only be triggered by the query for the intermediate label (between the stub/forward apex and the DNSSEC parent zone).

Timeline

1. Jul 22, 2026, 1:06 PM UTCCVE published
2. Jul 22, 2026, 2:19 PM UTCCISA SSVC assessment

   Exploitation: none · Automatable: no · Technical impact: partial

3. Jul 22, 2026, 2:19 PM UTCRecord last updated

Affected versions

• NLnet Labs Unbound

  From 1.13.2 · fixed in 1.25.2

References 1