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HIGH Received

CVE-2026-5856

Contiki-NG's DNS/mDNS resolver skip_name() in os/services/resolv/resolv.c walks DNS wire-format name labels with no packet-boundary check, and the caller in newdata() invokes it in a loop iterating nquestions times from the attacker-controlled DNS header before validating the transaction ID. An attacker who sets nquestions higher than the number of complete questions present causes skip_name() to walk past the UDP packet buffer, and the returned pointer is cast to struct dns_answer * for further memory reads. On builds with RESOLV_CONF_SUPPORTS_MDNS enabled, any peer on the local segment can trigger the read unauthenticated via a multicast UDP 5353 packet with no outstanding query required; on standard DNS builds an attacker who can inject a UDP response from port 53 during an outstanding query can trigger the same read. Impact is out-of-bounds read of uip_buf and adjacent memory, disclosing memory contents or crashing the resolver.

Published 06 Aug 2026, 22:18 UTC Last modified 06 Aug 2026, 22:18 UTC
01

Attack profile

The conditions required to exploit this vulnerability and its potential impact.

Attack vector Adjacent
Attack complexity Low
Privileges required None
User interaction None
Scope Not assessed
Confidentiality Not assessed
Integrity Not assessed
Availability Not assessed
02

Affected products

Product applicability statements supplied with the NVD record.

NVD has not published structured affected-product data for this record.
03

Weakness classification

CWE categories help security teams group the underlying software weakness.

04

Source references

External advisories, patches and technical reports attached to this CVE record.