Raw vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:HSummary
CVE-2026-33610 is a medium-severity Uncontrolled Resource Consumption (CWE-400) vulnerability in Powerdns Authoritative. Its CVSS base score is 5.9 (Medium).
Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique OS Exhaustion Flood (T1499.001); ranked at the 32th percentile by exploit likelihood (below the median); it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.
The strongest mitigations our analysis identified map to SC-5 (Denial-of-service Protection) and SC-6 (Resource Availability) — see the control section below for these in your framework.
Deeper analysis AI-assisted summary
Synthesised by an AI model from the NVD description and linked references — a reading aid, not an authoritative source.
CVE-2026-33610 is a vulnerability in PowerDNS secondary servers that enables a rogue primary server to cause file descriptor exhaustion, resulting in a denial of service. The issue occurs when the secondary server forwards a DNS update request to the rogue primary, leading to uncontrolled resource consumption (CWE-400). It carries a CVSS score of 5.9 (CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H) and was published on 2026-04-22T14:16:54.887.
Attackers who control a rogue primary server can exploit this if a targeted PowerDNS secondary server is configured to trust and forward DNS update requests to it. No privileges, user interaction, or scope changes are required, though the attack demands high complexity to establish the rogue primary relationship. Successful exploitation exhausts file descriptors on the secondary, causing a denial of service with no impact on confidentiality or integrity.
The official PowerDNS security advisory at https://docs.powerdns.com/authoritative/security-advisories/powerdns-advisory-powerdns-2026-05.html outlines mitigations, which security practitioners should review for patching instructions and configuration guidance to restrict DNS update forwarding and prevent resource exhaustion from untrusted primaries.
EU & UK References
- 🇪🇺 ENISA EUVD: EUVD-2026-24949
Vulnerability Data
A rogue primary server may cause file descriptor exhaustion and eventually a denial of service, when a PowerDNS secondary server forwards a DNS update request to it.
- CWE(s)
Related Threats
MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise Techniques
CVEs Like This One
Affected Assets
Mitigating Controls
Mitigating Controls (NIST 800-53 r5) AI
SC-5 directly limits the effects of resource-exhaustion events that constitute uncontrolled consumption.
SC-6 enforces explicit allocation limits on resources, structurally preventing the weakness from occurring.
Process isolation confines resource consumption to separate domains, reducing blast radius without stopping the root flaw.
Mitigating Controls (NIST CSF 2.0) AI
Derived directly from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry via our AI-authored CWE→CSF cross-walk (authority under review) — links open the control.
Explicitly requires monitoring and maintaining resource capacity, directly addressing uncontrolled consumption to preserve availability.
Continuous monitoring of computing resources can detect resource exhaustion but does not itself enforce allocation limits.
Resilience mechanisms such as avoiding single points of failure indirectly reduce impact of resource exhaustion.
Hardened configuration baselines can include resource quotas and limits that constrain consumption.
Mitigating Controls (ISO/IEC 27001:2022 Annex A) AI
Derived directly from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry via our AI-authored CWE→ISO cross-walk (authority under review) — links open the control.
Resource-utilization monitoring and alerting on bottlenecks or overloads limits the impact of denial-of-service or resource-exhaustion attacks.
By continuously monitoring utilization, stress-testing peak loads, and maintaining documented plans to scale or throttle resources, the control directly limits an attacker’s ability to drive a system into uncontrolled resource exhaustion.
Pre-agreed severity-based prioritization and resource allocation during incident triage reduce the likelihood that an attacker-induced resource exhaustion will overwhelm the organization before corrective action is taken.
Business-continuity plans that include resource-management controls reduce the likelihood that an attacker can trigger uncontrolled resource consumption by forcing the system into a degraded or fallback state.
Defining RTOs and capacity requirements for ICT services during business-impact analysis forces organizations to provision sufficient resources and throttling mechanisms, reducing the likelihood that an attacker can induce denial-of-service through uncontrolled resource consumption.
Early notification of anomalous resource consumption or system malfunctions enables throttling or isolation before availability is lost.