CVE-2026-35579: CoreDNS has TSIG authentication bypass on gRPC and QUIC transports
(updated )
The gRPC, QUIC, DoH, and DoH3 transports in CoreDNS incorrectly handle TSIG authentication.
For gRPC and QUIC, CoreDNS checks whether the TSIG key name exists in the config, but does not actually verify the TSIG HMAC. If the key name matches, tsigStatus remains nil and the tsig plugin treats the request as “verified”.
For DoH and DoH3, the issue is worse: TSIG is not verified at all. The DoH response writer has TsigStatus() hardcoded to return nil, so any request containing a TSIG record is treated as authenticated, even if the key name is invalid and the MAC is garbage.
As a result, attackers may bypass TSIG authentication on affected transports and access TSIG-protected functionality such as AXFR/IXFR zone transfers, dynamic updates, or other TSIG-gated plugin behavior.
References
Code Behaviors & Features
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