VulnerabilityDeferred

CVE-2025-5994

A multi-vendor cache poisoning vulnerability named 'Rebirthday Attack' has been discovered in caching resolvers that support EDNS Client Subnet (ECS).

HIGH 8.7EPSS 0.20%

Does this matter?

High impact if exploited, but EPSS currently rates exploitation as unlikely (0.20%). Schedule it in the normal patch cycle and watch for a rise in EPSS or a public exploit.

Description

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.

CVSS 4.0: 8.7 HIGHCVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/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/M
EPSS: 0.20% probability · 10th percentile
CISA KEV: Not listed
Weakness: CWE-349
Source: sep@nlnetlabs.nl

References

Source: NVD record, EPSS from FIRST.org, KEV from CISA. Refreshed daily.