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CVE-2026-80213

An issue was discovered in the resolv gem before 0.7.2 for Ruby. Resolv::DNS::MessageEncoder wrote a DNS label's length into a single octet without checking its range. A label longer than 255 octets h

Ruby resolvRuntimes & languages
CVSS
4.0Medium
ExploitationNo known exploitationNot in CISA KEV, which does not prove it is unexploitedCISA KEV
Exploit odds (EPSS)0.35%Chance of exploitation activity in the next 30 days, higher than 27% of CVEs. Scored 24 Oct 2026FIRST EPSS
Fixed in0.3.2Also 0.7.2CVE List
Published27 Aug 2026Updated 27 Aug 2026CVE List

What fixes it

A fixed version on one release line is not the upgrade target for every line. Check your exact version and any vendor backports.

Vendor and government advisories 1

Vendors that say their products are affected, and agencies that issued alerts. Check each for the fixed release of the product you run.

Reports 2

2 outlets mention it. Reports are not confirmation; each links to its source.

Description

An issue was discovered in the resolv gem before 0.7.2 for Ruby. Resolv::DNS::MessageEncoder wrote a DNS label's length into a single octet without checking its range. A label longer than 255 octets had its length stored modulo 256 but the label data was written unchanged, and thus the bytes on the wire described a different name than the one the application asked to encode. RFC 1035 section 2.3.4 limits a label to 63 octets, and the two high bits of the length octet are reserved for compression pointers. put_string packed the length with put_pack("C", d.length) and put_label used it for labels, and thus any value from 0 to 255 could end up as a label length octet, including the reserved 0x40-0xBF range and the 0xC0-0xFF pointer range. Resolv::DNS::Name.create did not check per-label or total name length either, and thus an attacker-controlled hostname reached the encoder unchanged. An application that resolves an attacker-controlled hostname sends a query whose wire bytes name a domain the attacker chose. A hostname suffix that the application validates against an allowlist becomes padding that never appears on the wire, and thus allowlist and egress checks can be bypassed. The recursive resolver caches the response under the attacker's name, and DNS logs record that name rather than the one the application asked for. A label length whose low octet lands in the 0xC0-0xFF range produces a length octet that conforming parsers read as the start of a compression pointer, with the following attacker-controlled byte as the offset.

Text from CVE List

Affected versions 2

  • resolvaffected: all versions before 0.3.2CVE List
  • resolvaffected: 0.4.0 before 0.7.2CVE List

References 2