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.
CVE-2020-25686
Score 3.7 from GitHub Security Advisory published 2022-05-24. NVD baseline CVSS 3.7; sources differ by 0.0.
- Lower severity and no public exploit yet
A fix is available — apply it.
- CVSS v3
- 3.7
- EG Score
- 3.7(medium)
- EPSS
- 91.0%
- KEV
- Not listed
Published
January 20, 2021
Last Modified
November 4, 2025
References (15)
- secalert@redhathttps://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1890125
- secalert@redhathttps://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/package-announce%40lists.fedoraproject.org/message/QGB7HL3OWHTLEPSMLDGOMXQKG3KM2QME/
- secalert@redhathttps://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/package-announce%40lists.fedoraproject.org/message/WYW3IR6APUSKOYKL5FT3ACTIHWHGQY32/
- secalert@redhathttps://security.gentoo.org/glsa/202101-17
- secalert@redhathttps://www.arista.com/en/support/advisories-notices/security-advisories/12135-security-advisory-61
- secalert@redhathttps://www.debian.org/security/2021/dsa-4844
- secalert@redhathttps://www.jsof-tech.com/disclosures/dnspooq/
- af854a3a-2127-422b-91ae-364da2661108https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1890125
- af854a3a-2127-422b-91ae-364da2661108https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/package-announce%40lists.fedoraproject.org/message/QGB7HL3OWHTLEPSMLDGOMXQKG3KM2QME/
- af854a3a-2127-422b-91ae-364da2661108https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/package-announce%40lists.fedoraproject.org/message/WYW3IR6APUSKOYKL5FT3ACTIHWHGQY32/
- af854a3a-2127-422b-91ae-364da2661108https://security.gentoo.org/glsa/202101-17
- af854a3a-2127-422b-91ae-364da2661108https://www.arista.com/en/support/advisories-notices/security-advisories/12135-security-advisory-61
- af854a3a-2127-422b-91ae-364da2661108https://www.debian.org/security/2021/dsa-4844
- af854a3a-2127-422b-91ae-364da2661108https://www.jsof-tech.com/disclosures/dnspooq/
- af854a3a-2127-422b-91ae-364da2661108https://www.kb.cert.org/vuls/id/434904
Patch Availability(11)
| Vendor / Ecosystem | Fixed in / Patch | Released | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| redhat | redhat-virtualization-host-0:4.3.13-20210127.0.el7_9 | 2021-02-03 | redhat |
| redhat | redhat-virtualization-host-0:4.4.4-20210201.0.el8_3 | 2021-02-03 | redhat |
| redhat | dnsmasq-0:2.66-14.el7_2.3 | 2021-01-25 | redhat |
| redhat | dnsmasq-0:2.66-21.el7_3.3 | 2021-01-25 | redhat |
| redhat | dnsmasq-0:2.79-6.el8_1.1 | 2021-01-19 | redhat |
| redhat | dnsmasq-0:2.76-16.el7_9.1 | 2021-01-19 | redhat |
| redhat | dnsmasq-0:2.76-2.el7_4.3 | 2021-01-19 | redhat |
| redhat | dnsmasq-0:2.79-13.el8_3.1 | 2021-01-19 | redhat |
| redhat | dnsmasq-0:2.76-7.el7_6.2 | 2021-01-19 | redhat |
| redhat | dnsmasq-0:2.76-10.el7_7.2 | 2021-01-19 | redhat |
| redhat | dnsmasq-0:2.79-11.el8_2.2 | 2021-01-19 | redhat |
Patches are aggregated from vendor advisories (Red Hat, Microsoft, Cisco, GitHub) and package ecosystems (OSV, GHSA). Multiple rows for the same upstream release have been deduplicated.
Weakness Classification(2)
MITRE Common Weakness Enumeration — the root-cause categories this CVE belongs to.
All Vendor Advisories
(12)
Every vendor that published an advisory referencing this CVE — pulled from our cve_vendor_advisories aggregation. Click any row for the vendor's original advisory page.
- Microsoft MSRCCVE-2020-256862021-01-27
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.
- Red HatRHSA-2021:0150MODERATE2021-01-19
RHSA-2021:0150 — Moderate
- Red HatRHSA-2021:0151MODERATE2021-01-19
RHSA-2021:0151 — Moderate
- Red HatRHSA-2021:0152MODERATE2021-01-19
RHSA-2021:0152 — Moderate
- Red HatRHSA-2021:0153MODERATE2021-01-19
RHSA-2021:0153 — Moderate
- Red HatRHSA-2021:0154MODERATE2021-01-19
RHSA-2021:0154 — Moderate
- Red HatRHSA-2021:0155MODERATE2021-01-19
RHSA-2021:0155 — Moderate
- Red HatRHSA-2021:0156MODERATE2021-01-19
RHSA-2021:0156 — Moderate
- Red HatRHSA-2021:0240MODERATE2021-01-19
RHSA-2021:0240 — Moderate
- Red HatRHSA-2021:0245MODERATE2021-01-19
RHSA-2021:0245 — Moderate
- Red HatRHSA-2021:0395MODERATE2021-01-19
RHSA-2021:0395 — Moderate
- Red HatRHSA-2021:0401MODERATE2021-01-19
RHSA-2021:0401 — Moderate
Data Freshness Timeline
(refreshed 11× in last 7d / 44× in last 30d)
Each row is a source pipeline that fetched or updated this CVE on that date, with what changed. For example, "NVD update" means NVD published or revised its analysis for this CVE; "MITRE cvelistV5" means we ingested or refreshed it from the CNA feed. Most recent first.
- 2026-07-11 08:25 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-07-11 08:25 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-07-09 19:07 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-07-08 15:12 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-07-07 13:43 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-07-07 13:43 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-07-06 16:25 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-07-06 16:25 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-07-06 02:21 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-07-06 02:21 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-07-05 02:27 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-07-04 06:29 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-07-04 06:28 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-07-01 15:03 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-07-01 09:48 UTCOSV refresh
- 2026-06-30 23:20 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-30 23:20 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-29 14:04 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-28 14:05 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-28 04:54 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-28 04:54 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-27 03:06 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-25 13:47 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-24 14:03 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-24 14:03 UTCEPSS rescore
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- 2026-06-23 21:31 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-23 21:31 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-22 14:23 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-22 14:23 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-21 14:54 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-21 14:54 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-21 01:57 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-21 01:57 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-19 19:23 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-18 17:50 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-17 17:50 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-16 17:50 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-16 17:50 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-15 17:46 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-14 23:15 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-13 22:58 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-13 22:58 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-13 15:43 UTCOSV refresh
- 2026-06-12 23:10 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-11 13:58 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-10 22:16 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-10 22:16 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-10 13:20 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-08 14:15 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-08 14:15 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-07 15:23 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-07 15:23 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-06 13:45 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-06 13:45 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-05 22:45 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-05 22:45 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-05 06:08 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-05 06:08 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-04 13:10 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-04 13:10 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-02 20:11 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-02 20:11 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-01 13:50 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-06-01 13:50 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-05-31 22:29 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-05-31 22:29 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-05-31 00:15 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-05-31 00:15 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-05-29 13:42 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-05-28 13:43 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-05-28 13:43 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-05-27 13:39 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-05-26 21:50 UTCEG score recompute
- 2026-05-26 21:50 UTCVendor advisory
- 2026-05-26 21:50 UTCGHSA enrichment
- 2026-05-26 13:42 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-05-26 13:42 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-05-26 07:17 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-05-26 07:17 UTCEPSS rescore
- 2026-05-24 16:48 UTCEPSS rescore
Publicly available exploits
(1 reference)Working exploit code is in the public domain (1 GitHub PoC). Defenders should treat patch urgency accordingly — public PoCs typically lead to mass-exploitation within 24-72 hours.
- GitHub PoCknqyf263/dnspooqFirst seen Jan 23, 2021
DNSpooq - dnsmasq cache poisoning (CVE-2020-25686, CVE-2020-25684, CVE-2020-25685)
Open source ↗
Frequently asked(5)
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What is the CVSS score of CVE-2020-25686?
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