Hickory DNS failure to verify self-signed RRSIG for DNSKEYs

Exploitation

No confirmed exploitation recorded. Patch Next marks exploitation only from CISA KEV.

CVSS

not scored

EPSS

No dated EPSS signal available.

As published by the source; long descriptions are shortened.

Summary The DNSSEC validation routines treat entire RRsets of DNSKEY records as trusted once they have established trust in only one of the DNSKEYs. As a result, if a zone includes a DNSKEY with a public key that matches a configured trust anchor, all keys in that zone will be trusted to authenticate other records in the zone. There is a second variant of this vulnerability involving DS records, where an authenticated DS record covering one DNSKEY leads to trust in signatures made by an unrelated DNSKEY in the same zone. Details verifydnskeyrrset() will return Ok(true) if any record's public key matches a trust anchor. This results in verifyrrset() returning a Secure proof. This ultimately results in successfully verifying a response containing DNSKEY records. verifydefaultrrset() looks up DNSKEY records by calling handle.lookup(), which takes the above code path. There's a comment following this that says "DNSKEYs were already validated by the inner query in the above lookup", but…

Published by the source

10 Feb 2025, 21:52 UTC

Last modified by the source

10 Feb 2025, 21:52 UTC

Source last checked

26 Oct 2026, 15:38 UTC

1. Revision 1 · created · 26 Oct 2026

   Published from ghsa record GHSA-v7pc-74h8-xq2h

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# Patch Next advisory brief: GHSA-v7pc-74h8-xq2h

Advisory: Hickory DNS failure to verify self-signed RRSIG for DNSKEYs
IDs: GHSA-v7pc-74h8-xq2h
Record: https://patchnext.com/advisories/ghsa-v7pc-74h8-xq2h (revision 1, source checked 26 Oct 2026, 15:38 UTC)
Inventory: none attached. This brief comes from a public page and does not say whether any deployment is affected.
Severity: Unrated
Exploitation: no confirmed exploitation recorded. Patch Next confirms exploitation only from CISA KEV.
Vendor response: Vendor fix available; fixed versions by package: hickory-proto 0.25.0-alpha.5, 0.24.3. A vendor fix does not mean a deployment is fixed.

## Affected components
- crates.io hickory-proto: affected >= 0.8.0, < 0.24.3; >= 0.25.0-alpha.1, < 0.25.0-alpha.5; fixed in 0.25.0-alpha.5, 0.24.3

## Suggested inspection (read-only)
- crates.io hickory-proto: check the installed version with your package manager.

## Supported action
Upgrade each affected component to a fixed version on its release line. For a transitive dependency, upgrade the parent package or add an override or constraint, then regenerate the lockfile. Redeploy every environment that ran an affected version.

## Required regression checks
- Run the test suite and a production build.
- Exercise the features that depend on hickory-proto.
- Repeat the inspection and confirm that only fixed versions remain installed.

## Rollback considerations
- Keep the previous lockfile and deployment artifact. Rolling back reinstates the vulnerable version, so apply any documented mitigation while you fix forward.

## Unresolved questions
- Which deployments run an affected version?
- Exploitation status can change. Check again before lowering the priority.
- Mark the work resolved only after the fixed version is verified in production.

## Sources
- Verified: https://github.com/advisories/GHSA-v7pc-74h8-xq2h (GitHub-reviewed advisory GHSA-v7pc-74h8-xq2h lists affected ranges: crates.io hickory-proto >=0.8.0 =0.25.0-alpha.1 <0.25.0-alpha.5)

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