dnsmasq — security advisory
A flaw was found in dnsmasq before version 2.83. When receiving a query, dnsmasq does not check for an existing pending request for the same name and forwards a new request. By default, a maximum of 150 pending queries can be sent to upstream servers, so there can be at most 150 queries for the same name. This flaw allows an off-path attacker on the network to substantially reduce the number of attempts that it would have to perform to forge a reply and have it accepted by dnsmasq. This issue is mentioned in the "Birthday Attacks" section of RFC5452. If chained with CVE-2020-25684, the attack complexity of a successful attack is reduced. The highest threat from this vulnerability is to data integrity.
- Products
- dnsmasq
- Affected versions
- Not specified
- Fixed versions
- 2.83-1
- CVEs
- CVE-2020-25686
- Confirmed fixed CVEs
- Not specified
- Updated in this feed
- 1 Nov 2026, 12:50 UTC · Revision 1
Source evidence
A flaw was found in dnsmasq before version 2.83. When receiving a query, dnsmasq does not check for an existing pending request for the same name and forwards a new request. By default, a maximum of 150 pending queries can be sent to upstream servers, so there can be at most 150 queries for the same name. This flaw allows an off-path attacker on the network to substantially reduce the number of attempts that it would have to perform to forge a reply and have it accepted by dnsmasq. This issue is mentioned in the "Birthday Attacks" section of RFC5452. If chained with CVE-2020-25684, the attack complexity of a successful attack is reduced. The highest threat from this vulnerability is to data integrity.
osv:DEBIAN-CVE-2020-25686
dnsmasq
Fixed versions: 2.83-1
dnsmasq
Fixed versions: 2.83-1
dnsmasq
Fixed versions: 2.83-1
Complete source record
{
"id": "6115940c98a52e2ced7ba792fdd86bc8cf33ff985bfa41a162841dde7477793f",
"url": "https://osv.dev/vulnerability/DEBIAN-CVE-2020-25686",
"method": "structured",
"payload": {
"kind": "advisory",
"title": "DEBIAN-CVE-2020-25686",
"summary": "A flaw was found in dnsmasq before version 2.83. When receiving a query, dnsmasq does not check for an existing pending request for the same name and forwards a new request. By default, a maximum of 150 pending queries can be sent to upstream servers, so there can be at most 150 queries for the same name. This flaw allows an off-path attacker on the network to substantially reduce the number of attempts that it would have to perform to forge a reply and have it accepted by dnsmasq. This issue is mentioned in the \"Birthday Attacks\" section of RFC5452. If chained with CVE-2020-25684, the attack complexity of a successful attack is reduced. The highest threat from this vulnerability is to data integrity.",
"evidence": "osv:DEBIAN-CVE-2020-25686",
"products": [
{
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"evidence": "/affected/0/package/name"
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"ecosystem": "Debian:12"
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"package": {
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"ecosystem": "Debian:13"
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"database_specific": {
"source": "https://storage.googleapis.com/debian-osv/debian-cve-osv/DEBIAN-CVE-2020-25686.json"
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"package": {
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},
"database_specific": {
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},
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}
],
"modified": "2026-10-26T12:01:04.541693311Z",
"provider": "osv",
"upstream": [
"CVE-2020-25686"
],
"references": [
"https://security-tracker.debian.org/tracker/CVE-2020-25686"
]
},
"related_cves": [
{
"value": "CVE-2020-25686",
"evidence": "/upstream"
}
],
"security_relevant": true,
"severity_evidence": "/severity/0/score"
},
"source_id": "core-osv",
"document_id": 451447,
"published_at": "2021-01-20T17:15:13+00:00"
}