# CVE-2018-14644: Denial of service in pdns

> Remote attackers can cause DNSSEC validation failures and service denial by exploiting meta-type query handling in PowerDNS Recursor.

- **Severity:** Medium 5.3 (`CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L`)
- **Exploited in the wild:** Not known
- **Login needed:** Not needed
- **Attackable:** Over the internet
- **Victim action needed:** Not needed
- **Fix available:** Yes
- **Published:** 9 Nov 2018
- **Updated:** 5 Aug 2024
- **Also known as:** DEBIAN-CVE-2018-14644, GHSA-2268-76c3-x85m, UBUNTU-CVE-2018-14644

## What is CVE-2018-14644?

CVE-2018-14644 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in Powerdns Recursor, published on 9 Nov 2018. An attacker can exploit it over the internet without logging in, with no action from the victim.

### Official description

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.

Weakness: CWE-20 (Improper Input Validation)

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2018-14644?

It affects 1 product.


Products: Powerdns Recursor.

## How do I fix CVE-2018-14644?

Upgrade to a fixed version.

## Is CVE-2018-14644 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2018-14644 in the wild and no public exploit code.

## Other vulnerabilities in Powerdns Recursor

- [CVE-2009-4009](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2009-4009/): Memory corruption in n/a (critical 10.0)
- [CVE-2020-10030](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2020-10030/): Memory corruption in n/a (high 8.8)
- [CVE-2025-59023](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2025-59023/): Crafted delegations or IP fragments can poison cached delegations in Recursor (high 8.2)
- [CVE-2025-59030](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2025-59030/): Insufficient validation of incoming notifies over TCP can lead to a denial of service in Recursor (high 7.5)
- [CVE-2023-22617](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2023-22617/): Denial of service in n/a (high 7.5)

## Fix prompt for AI coding agents

```text
Check this codebase for CVE-2018-14644 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2018-14644 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in Powerdns Recursor, published on 9 Nov 2018. An attacker can exploit it over the internet without logging in, with no action from the victim.
Exploitation: There is no known exploitation of CVE-2018-14644 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Affected product: Powerdns Recursor. No package-level version data is available, so check the vendor advisory linked from the reference page.

Task:
1. Search the dependency manifests and lockfiles (for example package.json, package-lock.json, requirements.txt, poetry.lock, uv.lock, pom.xml, build.gradle, go.mod, Cargo.lock, Gemfile.lock) and any Dockerfiles for the affected packages, including transitive dependencies.
2. If an affected version is in use, upgrade it to the fixed version for its release line with the project's package manager, so the lockfile is regenerated. Prefer the smallest upgrade that fixes it.
3. If there is no fix, or the upgrade would break the build, do not guess: explain the risk and the safest workaround instead.
4. Run the tests and summarise what changed and why.
5. If nothing in the project is affected, say so and change nothing.

Reference: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2018-14644/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2018-14644/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2018-14644
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2018-14644
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2018-14644

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2018-14644/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.