ISC Kea up to 2.6.4/3.0.2 kea-ctrl-agent/kea-dhcp-ddns/kea-dhcp4/kea-dhcp6 assertion

Summaryinfo

A vulnerability classified as problematic has been found in ISC Kea up to 2.6.4/3.0.2. Impacted is an unknown function of the component kea-ctrl-agent/kea-dhcp-ddns/kea-dhcp4/kea-dhcp6. Performing a manipulation results in assertion. This vulnerability is known as CVE-2026-3608. Remote exploitation of the attack is possible. No exploit is available. It is recommended to upgrade the affected component.

Detailsinfo

A vulnerability was found in ISC Kea up to 2.6.4/3.0.2. It has been classified as problematic. This affects some unknown processing of the component kea-ctrl-agent/kea-dhcp-ddns/kea-dhcp4/kea-dhcp6. The manipulation with an unknown input leads to a assertion vulnerability. CWE is classifying the issue as CWE-617. The product contains an assert() or similar statement that can be triggered by an attacker, which leads to an application exit or other behavior that is more severe than necessary. This is going to have an impact on availability. The summary by CVE is:

Sending a maliciously crafted message to the kea-ctrl-agent, kea-dhcp-ddns, kea-dhcp4, or kea-dhcp6 daemons over any configured API socket or HA listener can cause the receiving daemon to exit with a stack overflow error. This issue affects Kea versions 2.6.0 through 2.6.4 and 3.0.0 through 3.0.2.

It is possible to read the advisory at kb.isc.org. This vulnerability is uniquely identified as CVE-2026-3608 since 03/05/2026. The exploitability is told to be easy. It is possible to initiate the attack remotely. No form of authentication is needed for exploitation. The technical details are unknown and an exploit is not publicly available. The pricing for an exploit might be around USD $0-$5k at the moment (estimation calculated on 03/29/2026).

The vulnerability scanner Nessus provides a plugin with the ID 303617 (Linux Distros Unpatched Vulnerability : CVE-2026-3608), which helps to determine the existence of the flaw in a target environment.

Upgrading to version 2.6.5 or 3.0.3 eliminates this vulnerability. The upgrade is hosted for download at downloads.isc.org.

The vulnerability is also documented in the databases at Tenable (303617) and CERT Bund (WID-SEC-2026-0887). Statistical analysis made it clear that VulDB provides the best quality for vulnerability data.

Affected

• Internet Systems Consortium Kea

Productinfo

Vendor

• ISC

Name

• Kea

Version

• 2.6.0
• 2.6.1
• 2.6.2
• 2.6.3
• 2.6.4
• 3.0.0
• 3.0.1
• 3.0.2

License

• open-source

Website

• Vendor: https://www.isc.org/

CPE 2.3info

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CPE 2.2info

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Entryinfo

Statistical analysis made it clear that VulDB provides the best quality for vulnerability data.

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