Description
Net::Whois::Raw versions before 2.99044 for Perl ship a pwhois command-line tool that queries WHOIS for the wrong domain for unicode domain names.
pwhois encodes each non-ASCII label directly using Net::IDN::Punycode and prepends xn--. Apart from lowercasing ASCII and Cyrillic letters, it skips the IDNA mapping and normalization steps, so a label with other uppercase letters, or not in NFC, encodes to a different A-label than its IDNA form. For example, a label of U+00C9 followed by "cole" encodes to "xn--cole-pka" rather than "xn--cole-9oa".
The Net::Whois::Raw library modules are not affected.
Affected products
| Vendor | Product | Affected | Fixed |
|---|---|---|---|
| — | Net-Whois-Raw | < 2.99044 | 2.99044 |
Fixed in Linux distributions
Distributions backport fixes, so the version that fixes this vulnerability differs per release — upgrade to at least the version shown. From the distributions' security trackers and advisories.
Debian
Security tracker ↗| Release | Package | Fixed in | Advisory |
|---|---|---|---|
| Debian 14 | libnet-whois-raw-perl | 2.99043-2 | — |
| Debian 13 | libnet-whois-raw-perl | No fix yet | — |
| Debian 12 | libnet-whois-raw-perl | No fix yet | — |
Ubuntu
Security tracker ↗| Release | Package | Fixed in | Advisory |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ubuntu 26.10 | libnet-whois-raw-perl | No fix yet | — |
| Ubuntu 26.04 LTS | libnet-whois-raw-perl | No fix yet | — |
| Ubuntu 24.04 LTS | libnet-whois-raw-perl | No fix yet | — |
| Ubuntu 22.04 LTS | libnet-whois-raw-perl | No fix yet | — |
| Ubuntu 20.04 LTS | libnet-whois-raw-perl | No fix yet | — |
Show 2 more (older releases, extended support, other products)Fewer releases
| Release | Package | Fixed in | Advisory |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ubuntu 18.04 LTS | libnet-whois-raw-perl | No fix yet | — |
| Ubuntu 16.04 LTS | libnet-whois-raw-perl | No fix yet | — |
openSUSE
Security tracker ↗| Release | Package | Fixed in | Advisory |
|---|---|---|---|
| openSUSE Tumbleweed | perl-Net-Whois-Raw | 2.99044-1.1 | openSUSE-SU-2026:12066-1 |
Advisories 1
- openSUSE-SU-2026:12066-1 perl-Net-Whois-Raw-2.99044-1.1 on GA media SUSE / openSUSE Security Updates · Oct 7, 2026
References
- https://metacpan.org/release/NALOBIN/Net-Whois-Raw-2.99044/changes release-notes
- https://security.metacpan.org/patches/N/Net-Whois-Raw/2.99043/CVE-2026-19954-r1.patch patch
- https://github.com/regru/Net-Whois-Raw/issues/34 issue-tracking
- https://github.com/regru/Net-Whois-Raw/pull/35 issue-tracking
- https://metacpan.org/release/PJCJ/Net-IDN-Encode-2.590-TRIAL/view/lib/Net/IDN/Punycode.pm#WARNING
- https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc5891#section-5.2 technical-description