Security advisory
Change #4777 (introduced in October 2017) introduced an unforeseen issue in releases which were issued after that date, affecting which clients are permitted to make recursive queries to a BIND nameserver. The intended (and documented) behavior is that if an operator has not specified a value for the "allow-recursion" setting, it SHOULD default to one of the following: none, if "recursion no;" is set in named.conf; a value inherited from the "allow-query-cache" or "allow-query" settings IF "recursion yes;" (the default for that setting) AND match lists are explicitly set for "allow-query-cache" or "allow-query" (see the BIND9 Administrative Reference Manual section 6.2 for more details); or the intended default of "allow-recursion {localhost; localnets;};" if "recursion yes;" is in effect and no values are explicitly set for "allow-query-cache" or "allow-query". However, because of the regression introduced by change #4777, it is possible when "recursion yes;" is in effect and no match list values are provided for "allow-query-cache" or "allow-query" for the setting of "allow-recursion" to inherit a setting of all hosts from the "allow-query" setting default, improperly permitting recursion to all clients. Affects BIND 9.9.12, 9.10.7, 9.11.3, 9.12.0->9.12.1-P2, the development release 9.13.0, and also releases 9.9.12-S1, 9.10.7-S1, 9.11.3-S1, and 9.11.3-S2 from BIND 9 Supported Preview Edition.
- Products
- Not specified
- Affected versions
- Not specified
- Fixed versions
- Not specified
- CVEs
- CVE-2018-5738
- Confirmed fixed CVEs
- Not specified
- Updated in this feed
- 1 Nov 2026, 05:07 UTC · Revision 1
Source evidence
Change #4777 (introduced in October 2017) introduced an unforeseen issue in releases which were issued after that date, affecting which clients are permitted to make recursive queries to a BIND nameserver. The intended (and documented) behavior is that if an operator has not specified a value for the "allow-recursion" setting, it SHOULD default to one of the following: none, if "recursion no;" is set in named.conf; a value inherited from the "allow-query-cache" or "allow-query" settings IF "recursion yes;" (the default for that setting) AND match lists are explicitly set for "allow-query-cache" or "allow-query" (see the BIND9 Administrative Reference Manual section 6.2 for more details); or the intended default of "allow-recursion {localhost; localnets;};" if "recursion yes;" is in effect and no values are explicitly set for "allow-query-cache" or "allow-query". However, because of the regression introduced by change #4777, it is possible when "recursion yes;" is in effect and no match list values are provided for "allow-query-cache" or "allow-query" for the setting of "allow-recursion" to inherit a setting of all hosts from the "allow-query" setting default, improperly permitting recursion to all clients. Affects BIND 9.9.12, 9.10.7, 9.11.3, 9.12.0->9.12.1-P2, the development release 9.13.0, and also releases 9.9.12-S1, 9.10.7-S1, 9.11.3-S1, and 9.11.3-S2 from BIND 9 Supported Preview Edition.
osv:CVE-2018-5738
Complete source record
{
"id": "6d09d723821cae13fd35c8b0fe98c4daf7171b59f4b222990126f62d5b62fa8d",
"url": "https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2018-5738",
"method": "structured",
"payload": {
"kind": "advisory",
"title": "CVE-2018-5738",
"summary": "Change #4777 (introduced in October 2017) introduced an unforeseen issue in releases which were issued after that date, affecting which clients are permitted to make recursive queries to a BIND nameserver. The intended (and documented) behavior is that if an operator has not specified a value for the \"allow-recursion\" setting, it SHOULD default to one of the following: none, if \"recursion no;\" is set in named.conf; a value inherited from the \"allow-query-cache\" or \"allow-query\" settings IF \"recursion yes;\" (the default for that setting) AND match lists are explicitly set for \"allow-query-cache\" or \"allow-query\" (see the BIND9 Administrative Reference Manual section 6.2 for more details); or the intended default of \"allow-recursion {localhost; localnets;};\" if \"recursion yes;\" is in effect and no values are explicitly set for \"allow-query-cache\" or \"allow-query\". However, because of the regression introduced by change #4777, it is possible when \"recursion yes;\" is in effect and no match list values are provided for \"allow-query-cache\" or \"allow-query\" for the setting of \"allow-recursion\" to inherit a setting of all hosts from the \"allow-query\" setting default, improperly permitting recursion to all clients. Affects BIND 9.9.12, 9.10.7, 9.11.3, 9.12.0->9.12.1-P2, the development release 9.13.0, and also releases 9.9.12-S1, 9.10.7-S1, 9.11.3-S1, and 9.11.3-S2 from BIND 9 Supported Preview Edition.",
"evidence": "osv:CVE-2018-5738",
"products": [],
"severity": "high",
"structured": {
"id": "CVE-2018-5738",
"aliases": [
"CVE-2018-5738"
],
"metrics": [
{
"type": "CVSS_V3",
"score": "CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N"
}
],
"affected": [
{
"ranges": [
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{
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],
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{
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{
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{
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{
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{
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{
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],
"source": "CPE_STRING"
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{
"cpe": "cpe:2.3:a:isc:bind:9.12.0:rc1:*:*:*:*:*:*",
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{
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{
"cpe": "cpe:2.3:a:isc:bind:9.12.0:rc3:*:*:*:*:*:*",
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{
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],
"source": "CPE_STRING"
},
{
"cpe": "cpe:2.3:a:isc:bind:9.12.1:*:*:*:*:*:*:*",
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{
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{
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],
"source": "CPE_STRING"
},
{
"cpe": "cpe:2.3:a:isc:bind:9.12.1:p1:*:*:*:*:*:*",
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{
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],
"source": "CPE_STRING"
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{
"cpe": "cpe:2.3:a:isc:bind:9.12.1:p2:*:*:*:*:*:*",
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"9.12.1-p2",
"9.13.0",
"9.9.12",
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{
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{
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}
],
"source": "CPE_STRING"
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{
"cpe": "cpe:2.3:a:isc:bind:9.9.12:s1:*:*:*:*:*:*",
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{
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}
],
"source": "CPE_STRING"
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{
"cpe": "cpe:2.3:a:isc:bind:9.10.7:*:*:*:*:*:*:*",
"range": [
{
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{
"last_affected": "9.10.7"
}
],
"source": "CPE_STRING"
},
{
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"range": [
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{
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"source": "CPE_STRING"
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{
"cpe": "cpe:2.3:a:isc:bind:9.11.3:*:*:*:*:*:*:*",
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{
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],
"source": "CPE_STRING"
},
{
"cpe": "cpe:2.3:a:isc:bind:9.11.3:s1:*:*:*:*:*:*",
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"source": "CPE_STRING"
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{
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{
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{
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{
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{
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{
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],
"source": "CPE_STRING"
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{
"cpe": "cpe:2.3:a:isc:bind:9.13.0:*:*:*:*:*:*:*",
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{
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}
],
"modified": "2026-10-24T10:30:24.816104299Z",
"provider": "osv",
"references": [
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"https://security.gentoo.org/glsa/201903-13",
"https://security.netapp.com/advisory/ntap-20190830-0002/",
"https://usn.ubuntu.com/3683-1/"
],
"provider_metadata": {
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],
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{
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]
}
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}
},
"related_cves": [
{
"value": "CVE-2018-5738",
"evidence": "/id"
}
],
"security_relevant": true,
"severity_evidence": "/severity/0/score"
},
"source_id": "core-osv",
"document_id": 431227,
"published_at": "2019-01-16T20:29:00.907+00:00"
}