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Fencer Intel
medium 5.3

CVE-2016-7068 json

An issue has been found in PowerDNS before 3.4.11 and 4.0.2, and PowerDNS recursor before 3.7.4 and 4.0.4, allowing a remote, unauthenticat…

published 2018-09-11 8 y ago modified 2026-06-17 4 mo ago also EUVD-2016-7948

cvss
5.3
version 3.0, CNA
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
7.3%
EPSS 7.3% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 94%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

An issue has been found in PowerDNS before 3.4.11 and 4.0.2, and PowerDNS recursor before 3.7.4 and 4.0.4, allowing a remote, unauthenticated attacker to cause an abnormal CPU usage load on the PowerDNS server by sending crafted DNS queries, which might result in a partial denial of service if the system becomes overloaded. This issue is based on the fact that the PowerDNS server parses all records present in a query regardless of whether they are needed or even legitimate. A specially crafted query containing a large number of records can be used to take advantage of that behaviour.

Patch / fix

  • powerdns authoritative 3.4.11, 4.0.2
  • powerdns recursor 3.7.4, 4.0.4
  • pdns Debian 14, Debian 13, Debian 12 4.0.2-1
  • pdns-recursor Debian 14, Debian 13, Debian 12 4.0.4-1

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2016-7068

  • pdns-recursor Ubuntu 14.04 LTS 3.5.3-1ubuntu0.1

ubuntu advisories UBUNTU-CVE-2016-7068

Ubuntu security data © Canonical Ltd., from https://github.com/canonical/ubuntu-security-notices via OSV; changed: normalised to fixed package versions per release. CC BY-SA 4.0

  • pdns openSUSE Tumbleweed 4.5.1-1.5
  • pdns-recursor openSUSE Tumbleweed 4.5.5-1.3

opensuse advisories openSUSE-SU-2024:11156-1openSUSE-SU-2024:11157-1

  • pdns Alpine 3.5 4.0.3-r0
  • pdns-recursor Alpine 3.5 4.0.4-r0

alpine advisories ALPINE-CVE-2016-7068

Alpine secdb © Alpine Linux, from https://secdb.alpinelinux.org via OSV; changed: normalised to fixed package versions per release. CC BY-SA 4.0

  • powerdns Arch Linux 4.0.2-1
  • powerdns-recursor Arch Linux 4.0.4-1

arch linux advisories AVG-147AVG-148

Vendor advisories

What the vendors themselves say about their products: affected, fixed or not affected, and what to do.

red hat product security vex CVE-2016-7068 updated cvss 5.3

pdns: Crafted queries can cause abnormal CPU usage

  • Red Hat All currently supported Red Hat products
    not affected: vulnerable code not present

Red Hat CSAF VEX © Red Hat, Inc., from https://security.access.redhat.com/data/csaf/v2/vex/; changed: reduced to product statuses and remediations. CC BY 4.0 · csaf

Exploit prediction

7.29% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 94% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-09).

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
CNA 3.0 5.3 CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L
NVD 3.0 7.5 CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
NVD 2.0 7.8 AV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:N/I:N/A:C

Affected products

  • Open-Xchange pdns

Classification

Weakness
  • CWE-20 Improper Input Validation
  • CWE-400 Uncontrolled Resource Consumption

References

Sources

Fencer Intel keeps one entry per vulnerability: the CVE id wins, then GHSA, and records that alias each other are merged, except that two CVEs always keep separate entries. The same data is available as JSON.