CVE-2026-128089rthalley dnspython uncontrolled resource consumption
CVE-2026-128089 is a uncontrolled resource consumption in rthalley dnspython, rated high (7.5 on CVSS 3.1).
Why this priority: High severity, with no exploitation signal yet.
Published · Updated · NVD status: Received
What it is
Requests can consume unbounded CPU, memory or connections and starve the service. Resources are allocated without a cap, so a caller can exhaust them.
How it is reached
An attacker can exploit it over the network, without an account, and nobody has to click anything.
What an attacker gains
A successful attack can take it offline. In practice, this kind of flaw lets an attacker exhaust CPU, memory or connections until the service stops answering.
Is it being exploited?
There is no public report of exploitation yet.
What to do
- Upgrade rthalley dnspython to 2.9.2 or later.
- Until it is patched, keep it off the internet or behind a VPN, allowlist or authenticating proxy.
Description from NVD
dnspython is a DNS toolkit for Python. Prior to version 2.9.2, the from_text() parser for WKS records does not require the service number to be between 0 and 65535 before using it as a bitmap offset. An attacker-controlled zone file can supply a larger number, causing the service bitmap to grow to an extremely large size through inefficient repeated extension, consuming excessive memory and CPU and potentially terminating the process. Applications are affected only when they parse zone-file text whose record type and rdata are attacker controlled. This issue is fixed in version 2.9.2.
What this means for your architecture.
A CVE names a product. Whether it matters depends on where that product sits in your systems: what reaches it, which trust boundary it guards and what it can reach once compromised. Veriom maps your components, their relationships and your trust boundaries from your code, cloud and delivery evidence, so you can see where a component like this sits. The radar itself does not look at your systems.
Components it touches
- Public entry points and shared services that must stay up. The flaw sits between untrusted traffic and shared capacity.
Trust boundaries in play
- Internet-facing entry points. No account is needed. Any instance reachable from outside your perimeter, through a load balancer, gateway, VPN or exposed admin port, is in scope.
- Between untrusted traffic and shared capacity. An attacker who crosses it can exhaust CPU, memory or connections until the service stops answering.
Questions to answer about your own systems
- Where does rthalley dnspython run in your systems, and at which version?
- Which of those instances can be reached from the internet or partner networks?
- What can it reach once compromised: which data stores, secrets and services?
Read more
Patches and commits
Sources
- CVE records and CVSS scores from the NVD CVE API. This product uses the NVD API but is not endorsed or certified by the NVD.
- Exploitation status from CISA’s Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog.
- Exploit likelihood from FIRST’s Exploit Prediction Scoring System (EPSS), refreshed daily.
- Explanations are written by Veriom from fixed templates over each record’s data, not by a person reviewing each CVE. Descriptions are quoted from the records as published.