Vulnerability Monitor

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CVE-2018-14644

An issue has been found in PowerDNS Recursor from 4.0.0 up to and including 4.1.4. A remote attacker sending a DNS query for a meta-type like OPT can lead to a zone being wrongly cached as failing DNSSEC validation. It only arises if the parent zone is signed, and all the authoritative servers for that parent zone answer with FORMERR to a query for at least one of the meta-types. As a result, subsequent queries from clients requesting DNSSEC validation will be answered with a ServFail.

Security Impact Summary

This vulnerability carries a MEDIUM severity rating with a CVSS v3.1 score of 5.3, indicating it can be exploited remotely over the network with relatively low complexity without requiring user interaction and does not require pre-existing privileges . The vulnerability impacts and limited availability for affected systems. Impacting 1 product from powerdns organizations running these solutions should prioritize assessment and patching.

Historical Context

First disclosed in 2018, this vulnerability was reported during a period defined by widespread IoT adoption challenges, mobile security concerns, and the emergence of advanced persistent threat (APT) techniques. Contemporary mitigation strategies focused on secure development practices and third-party component vetting.

Published

2018-11-09T19:29:00.253

Last Modified

2024-11-21T03:49:29.683

Status

Modified

Source

[email protected]

Severity

CVSSv3.0: 5.3 (MEDIUM)

CVSSv2 Vector

AV:N/AC:M/Au:N/C:N/I:N/A:P

Access Vector: NETWORK
Access Complexity: MEDIUM
Authentication: NONE
Confidentiality Impact: NONE
Integrity Impact: NONE
Availability Impact: PARTIAL

Exploitability Score

8.6

Impact Score

2.9

Weaknesses

Type: Secondary
CWE-20
Type: Primary
CWE-20

Affected Vendors & Products

Type	Vendor	Product	Version/Range	Vulnerable?
Application	powerdns	recursor	≤ 4.1.4	Yes

References

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=CVE-2018-14644 Issue Tracking, Third Party Advisory ([email protected])
https://docs.powerdns.com/recursor/security-advisories/powerdns-advisory-2018-07.html Vendor Advisory ([email protected])
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=CVE-2018-14644 Issue Tracking, Third Party Advisory (af854a3a-2127-422b-91ae-364da2661108)
https://docs.powerdns.com/recursor/security-advisories/powerdns-advisory-2018-07.html Vendor Advisory (af854a3a-2127-422b-91ae-364da2661108)

How SecUtils Interprets This CVE

SecUtils normalizes and enriches National Vulnerability Database (NVD) records by standardizing vendor and product identifiers, aggregating vulnerability metadata from both NVD and MITRE sources, and providing structured context for security teams. For powerdns's affected products, we extract Common Platform Enumeration (CPE) data, Common Weakness Enumeration (CWE) classifications, CVSS severity metrics, and reference data to enable rapid vulnerability prioritization and asset correlation. This record contains no exploit code, proof-of-concept instructions, or attack methodologies—only defensive intelligence necessary for patch management, risk assessment, and security operations.