CVE-2026-123602 json
Hickory DNS Recursor Ghost Domain Attack via Child-Side NS RRset Caching
published 2mo ago modified yesterday also EUVD-2026-119361 , GHSA-2hxp-x833-73f7
Unreviewed: the maintainers' own advisory
Published by the maintainers on their GitHub repository hickory-dns/hickory-dns. GitHub has not reviewed it into the GitHub Advisory Database, so the affected packages and versions are the maintainers' word. Read the full advisory on GitHub.
- cvss
- 5.9
- version 3.1, CNA
- cisa kev
- Not listed
- not in CISA's catalog
- epss
- 0.3%
- EPSS 0.3% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 19%
- public exploits
- 0
- none known
Summary
The Hickory DNS recursor in all versions of hickory-recursor and in hickory-resolver 0.26.0-beta.1 before 0.26.2 (recursor feature) is vulnerable to ghost domain names attacks because it reuses child-side apex NS RRsets cached from zone NS queries for iterative resolution. By repeatedly querying a zone's NS records, an attacker keeps the stale RRset cached indefinitely, letting name servers whose delegation the parent revoked keep answering for the zone.
Patch / fix
- hickory-dns hickory-dns 0.26.2
- rust-hickory-resolver Debian 14 0.26.3-1
debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2026-123602
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- Exploitation
- none
- Automatable
- no
- Technical impact
- partial
- Assessed
- 2d ago
Exploit prediction
0.27% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 19% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-11).
CVSS scores
| assigned by | version | score | vector |
|---|---|---|---|
| CNA | 4.0 | 8.2 | CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:P/PR:N/UI:N/VC:N/VI:H/VA:N/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N |
| CNA | 3.1 | 5.9 | CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:H/A:N |
| CNA | 4.0 | 8.2 | CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:P/PR:N/UI:N/VC:N/VI:H/VA:N/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N/E:X/CR:X/IR:X/AR:X/MAV:X/MAC:X/MAT:X/MPR:X/MUI:X/MVC:X/MVI:X/MVA:X/MSC:X/MSI:X/MSA:X/S:X/AU:X/R:X/V:X/RE:X/U:X |
Affected products
- hickory-dns hickory-dns
Classification
- Weakness
-
- CWE-672 Operation on a Resource after Expiration or Release
References
-
github.com
/hickory-dns/hickory-dns/security/advisories/GHSA-2hxp-x833-73f7
vendor-advisory, advisory
-
vulncheck.com
/advisories/hickory-dns-recursor-ghost-domain-attack-via-child-side-ns-rrset-caching
third-party-advisory
Sources
- CVE List CVE-2026-123602
- NVD CVE-2026-123602
- Maintainer advisory GHSA-2hxp-x833-73f7
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.
The maintainers of hickory-dns/hickory-dns published their own advisory on GitHub. Reviewed sources take precedence over it.