CVE intelligence

CVE-2026-33278

Vulnerability intelligence

Published May 20, 2026Sources checked Nov 14, 2026

9.8CRITICALCVSS out of 10

What this means

Review the available evidence

CVE-2026-33278 and is rated Critical severity with a CVSS score of 9.8. It is not in the current CISA KEV record we collected. That does not prove exploitation has not occurred.

What to do next

Remediation and response

Microsoft Security Response Center guidance

Vendor revision: May 23, 2026

CBL-Mariner Releases

Vendor-listed releases

1.25.1-1

CISA KEVNot listedBased on the latest collected catalog

EPSS1.4%Estimated 30-day exploitation probability

Ransomware useNot markedCISA KEV ransomware field

Threat actors0Source-linked actor relationships

Overview

What is CVE-2026-33278?

NLnet Labs Unbound 1.19.1 up to and including version 1.25.0 has a vulnerability in the DNSSEC validator that enables denial of service and possible remote code execution as a result of deep copying a data structure and erroneously overwriting a destination pointer. An adversary can exploit the vulnerability by controlling a malicious signed zone and querying a vulnerable Unbound.

When DS sub-queries need to suspend validation due to NSEC3 computational budget exhaustion (introduced in Unbound 1.19.1), Unbound deep-copies response messages to preserve them across memory region teardown. A struct-assignment bug overwrites the destination's pointer with the source's pointer.

After the sub-query region is freed, the resumed validator dereferences this dangling pointer, triggering a crash or potentially enabling arbitrary code execution. Unbound 1.25.1 contains a patch with a fix to preserve the correct pointer when deep copying the data structure.

Source: NVD