With pipelining enabled each incoming query on a TCP connection requires a similar resource allocation to a query received via UDP or via TCP without pipelining enabled. A client using a TCP-pipelined connection to a server could consume more resources than the server has been provisioned to handle. When a TCP connection with a large number of pipelined queries is closed, the load on the server releasing these multiple resources can cause it to become unresponsive, even for queries that can be answered authoritatively or from cache. (This is most likely to be perceived as an intermittent server problem).

There had existed in one of the ISC BIND libraries a bug in a function that was used by dhcpd when operating in DHCPv6 mode. There was also a bug in dhcpd relating to the use of this function per its documentation, but the bug in the library function prevented this from causing any harm. All releases of dhcpd from ISC contain copies of this, and other, BIND libraries in combinations that have been tested prior to release and are known to not present issues like this. Some third-party packagers of ISC software have modified the dhcpd source, BIND source, or version matchup in ways that create the crash potential. Based on reports available to ISC, the crash probability is large and no analysis has been done on how, or even if, the probability can be manipulated by an attacker. Affects: Builds of dhcpd versions prior to version 4.4.1 when using BIND versions 9.11.2 or later, or BIND versions with specific bug fixes backported to them. ISC does not have access to comprehensive version lists for all repackagings of dhcpd that are vulnerable. In particular, builds from other vendors may also be affected. Operators are advised to consult their vendor documentation.

In BIND 9.15.6 -> 9.16.5, 9.17.0 -> 9.17.3, An attacker who can establish a TCP connection with the server and send data on that connection can exploit this to trigger the assertion failure, causing the server to exit.

A malicious actor who intentionally exploits this lack of effective limitation on the number of fetches performed when processing referrals can, through the use of specially crafted referrals, cause a recursing server to issue a very large number of fetches in an attempt to process the referral. This has at least two potential effects: The performance of the recursing server can potentially be degraded by the additional work required to perform these fetches, and The attacker can exploit this behavior to use the recursing server as a reflector in a reflection attack with a high amplification factor.