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No exploitation reported

CVE-2018-5738

No exploitation reported by the sources we read.

  • Published2019-01-16
  • WeaknessCWE-200

Am I affected?

With a domain, we read the version its public headers and pages expose. A distribution build can carry the fix under an older number.

Description

Change #4777 (introduced in October 2017) introduced an unforeseen issue in releases which were issued after that date, affecting which clients are permitted to make recursive queries to a BIND nameserver. The intended (and documented) behavior is that if an operator has not specified a value for the "allow-recursion" setting, it SHOULD default to one of the following: none, if "recursion no;" is set in named.conf; a value inherited from the "allow-query-cache" or "allow-query" settings IF "recursion yes;" (the default for that setting) AND match lists are explicitly set for "allow-query-cache" or "allow-query" (see the BIND9 Administrative Reference Manual section 6.2 for more details); or the intended default of "allow-recursion {localhost; localnets;};" if "recursion yes;" is in effect and no values are explicitly set for "allow-query-cache" or "allow-query". However, because of the regression introduced by change #4777, it is possible when "recursion yes;" is in effect and no match list values are provided for "allow-query-cache" or "allow-query" for the setting of "allow-recursion" to inherit a setting of all hosts from the "allow-query" setting default, improperly permitting recursion to all clients. Affects BIND 9.9.12, 9.10.7, 9.11.3, 9.12.0->9.12.1-P2, the development release 9.13.0, and also releases 9.9.12-S1, 9.10.7-S1, 9.11.3-S1, and 9.11.3-S2 from BIND 9 Supported Preview Edition.

Timeline

dates in UTC
  1. 2019-01-1620:29CVE publishedNVD
  2. 2026-10-2319:23EPSS crossed 10 %FIRST EPSS

Observed activity

isMalicious corpus · updated 2026-10-23 18:48 UTC
Indicators tagged with this CVE, per day0 indicators over 7 days
Block these indicators
  • Firewall list (EDL, text): https://api.ismalicious.com/edl/cve/CVE-2018-5738?format=txt
  • CSV export: https://api.ismalicious.com/edl/cve/CVE-2018-5738?format=csv
  • TAXII collection of exploited CVEs
  • The EDL and CSV take an API key on the Pro plan.

Versions per branch

NVD
Isc bind
BranchAffectedFixed in
9.9= 9.9.12no fix published
9.10= 9.10.7no fix published
9.11= 9.11.3no fix published
9.12= 9.12.0no fix published
9.12= 9.12.1no fix published
9.13= 9.13.0no fix published
Canonical ubuntu linux
BranchAffectedFixed in
18.4= 18.04no fix published

as publishedRanges as NVD and OSV publish them; a distribution’s build can be fixed under an older number.

Fix

Advisories and patches

Detection

Nuclei template
none so far
ProjectDiscovery
Exploit-DB
no entry
Exploit-DB
Proof-of-concept repositories
none listed
PoC-in-GitHub

Sources

  • CNACVSS 3.05.3read 2026-10-23
  • NVDCVSS 3.07.5read 2026-10-23
  • NVDCVSS 2.05read 2026-10-23
  • NVDweakness (CWE)CWE-200read 2026-10-23
  • FIRST EPSSEPSS score11.2 %read 2026-10-23

Technical details

CVSS v3 Vector
CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N
Published
2019-01-16
Last Modified
2026-06-17
NVD status
Modified

Frequently asked questions

What is CVE-2018-5738?

Change #4777 (introduced in October 2017) introduced an unforeseen issue in releases which were issued after that date, affecting which clients are permitted to make recursive queries to a BIND nameserver. The intended (and documented) behavior is that if an operator has not specified a value for the "allow-recursion" setting, it SHOULD default to one of the following: none, if "recursion no;" is set in named.conf; a value inherited from the "allow-query-cache" or "allow-query" settings IF "recursion yes;" (the default for that setting) AND match lists are explicitly set for "allow-query-cache" or "allow-query" (see the BIND9 Administrative Reference Manual section 6.2 for more details); or the intended default of "allow-recursion {localhost; localnets;};" if "recursion yes;" is in effect and no values are explicitly set for "allow-query-cache" or "allow-query". However, because of the regression introduced by change #4777, it is possible when "recursion yes;" is in effect and no match list values are provided for "allow-query-cache" or "allow-query" for the setting of "allow-recursion" to inherit a setting of all hosts from the "allow-query" setting default, improperly permitting recursion to all clients. Affects BIND 9.9.12, 9.10.7, 9.11.3, 9.12.0->9.12.1-P2, the development release 9.13.0, and also releases 9.9.12-S1, 9.10.7-S1, 9.11.3-S1, and 9.11.3-S2 from BIND 9 Supported Preview Edition.

Is CVE-2018-5738 actively exploited?

Active exploitation of CVE-2018-5738 has not been confirmed. Its EPSS score was 11.2% on 2026-10-22, the estimated probability of exploitation in the next 30 days.

What is the CVSS score for CVE-2018-5738?

CVE-2018-5738 has a CVSS v3 base score of 7.5 (HIGH severity), with vector string CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N.

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