CVE-2026-71883
HighCVSS 8.2Summary
In Bouncy Castle for Java LTS before 2.73.13, the one-shot native packet ciphers for AES-CBC, CCM, CFB, CTR, GCM and GCM-SIV released the caller's key, IV and additional authenticated data arrays with JNI's ReleaseByteArrayElements in mode 0, which commits the native copy back into the Java array. When an application passed the same Java array as both input and destination (e.g., encrypting in place over KeyParameter.getKey()), the later mode-0 release wrote the unchanged key bytes over the ciphertext, exposing the raw AES key. The fix releases read-only input arrays with JNI_ABORT, preventing the copy-back.
Risk Assessment
Organizations may experience AES key leakage, potentially compromising the confidentiality of encrypted data. An attacker with access to encrypted messages could decrypt them if the key is exposed.
Recommendation
Update Bouncy Castle to version 2.73.13 or later immediately. If not possible, avoid in-place encryption over key arrays and use separate input and output buffers.
Other vulnerabilities in Bouncy Castle
See all- CVE-2026-85515High
In Bouncy Castle for Java before 1.86, a vulnerability allows truncated OpenPGP encrypted messages to be accepted without error. On the SEIPD version 1 path, no integrity check is performed at all, and on the AEAD path (SEIPD v2 and v5), the trailing authentication tag is skipped, silently dropping packets after the literal. The issue also affects LTS before 2.73.13 and FIPS (BC-FJA) before specified versions, but only on the AEAD route.
- CVE-2026-71891High
In Bouncy Castle for Java before 1.86, BLS12_381BasicScheme.keyValidate accepted public keys built on a foreign ECC curve that merely shares BLS12-381's field characteristic. This allowed aggregate signatures to verify with a phantom signer, even without a signature for that key and message pair.
- CVE-2026-71889High
In Bouncy Castle for Java before 1.86, both copies of PKIXCertPathReviewer (org.bouncycastle.pkix.jcajce and the legacy org.bouncycastle.x509) failed to apply X.509 name constraints to the end-entity certificate. The checkNameConstraints method walked the path with a loop bound excluding index zero (the target certificate), so the permitted and excluded subtree checks of RFC 5280 sec. 6.1.3 (b) and (c) never ran against the leaf's subject DN or subjectAltName. As a result, a chain whose leaf violated a NameConstraints extension imposed by its issuing CA was reported as valid (isValidCertPath() returned true with an empty error list), while CertPathValidator rejected the identical chain.
- CVE-2026-71886High
In Bouncy Castle for Java before 1.86, the high-level OpenPGP certificate API accepted third-party certifications or trust delegations from any component key of the issuing certificate, without requiring the component to have certification authority. An attacker could use a restricted subkey (e.g., signing-only or encryption-only) to issue a valid identity certification or trust delegation, which was then attributed to the primary key.
- CVE-2026-71885Critical
In Bouncy Castle for Java before 1.86, the Messaging Layer Security (MLS, RFC 9420) implementation did not bind an X.509 credential to a LeafNode's signature_key. LeafNode.verify() checked a leaf's signature against the signature_key carried in the leaf itself, while the credential's X.509 certificate chain was stored but never parsed or validated, so the end-entity certificate's public key was never required to match signature_key as RFC 9420 sec. 5.3 requires. An attacker could present another party's certificate as its credential while signing the leaf, and the enclosing KeyPackage, with an unrelated key, and be accepted under that other party's identity through KeyPackage.verify() and the Group leaf-validation path.
- CVE-2026-58062Critical
In Bouncy Castle for Java before 1.85, a Stapled OCSP response is accepted without binding to the checked certificate. This issue also affects LTS before 2.73.12 and FIPS before 2.0.2 (2.0.X series) and 2.1.3 (2.1.X series).
- CVE-2026-8763Critical
In Bouncy Castle for Java before 1.85, Name Constraints can be bypassed via a trailing dot in rfc822Name and URI. This issue also affects LTS before 2.73.12 and FIPS before appropriate versions.
- CVE-2026-59650Critical
In Bouncy Castle for Java before 1.85, the MTI/A0 Diffie-Hellman key agreement exponentiates an unvalidated peer value. This issue also affects LTS before 2.73.12.
- CVE-2026-17508Medium
In Bouncy Castle for Java before 1.86, several password-based key derivation entry points ran the KDF with cost parameters taken from the untrusted input being processed, without bounding them, so a small input could dictate an arbitrary amount of work before any password or integrity check could reject it. The affected paths are the RFC 9579 PBMAC1 MAC calculator builders, the scrypt parallelization parameter p in the PKCS#8 and PKCS#12 cost guards, the raw JCA PBKDF2 provider, and the bcrypt round count read from an encrypted OpenSSH v1 private key's own kdfoptions. Each now bounds the parameter before deriving, in line with the caps already applied elsewhere in the tree, with the OpenSSH round count configurable through the new org.bouncycastle.openssh.max_rounds property. This completes the bounding begun in 1.85 for the PKCS#8 / PBES2 decryptors (CVE-2026-15055). This issue also affects Bouncy Castle for Java LTS before 2.73.13, and Bouncy Castle for Java FIPS (BC-FJA) before bcpkix-fips 1.0.13 (1.0.X series), 2.0.13 (2.0.X series) and 2.1.13 (2.1.X series).
- CVE-2026-14682High
In Bouncy Castle for Java before 1.85, a possible Out-of-Memory (OOM) condition exists due to unbounded up-front allocation on a definite-length read. This issue also affects LTS and FIPS versions.
Original NVD description (English source)
In Bouncy Castle for Java LTS before 2.73.13, the one-shot native packet ciphers for AES-CBC, CCM, CFB, CTR, GCM and GCM-SIV released the caller's key, IV and additional authenticated data arrays with JNI's ReleaseByteArrayElements in mode 0, which commits the native copy back into the Java array. Those arrays are read-only to the native code, and on a JVM that returns a copy rather than a pin the copy still holds the input bytes as they were read. The output buffer is taken through a separate critical region and committed first, so where an application passed the same Java array as both an input and the destination - encrypting in place over KeyParameter.getKey(), for example - the later mode-0 release of the key wrote the unchanged key bytes over the ciphertext that had just been produced. The call still returned the correct output length, so an application encrypting in place over its own key array was handed the raw AES key where it expected ciphertext, with nothing in the API to indicate it, and would transmit or store the key in place of the message. The read-only input arrays are now released with JNI_ABORT, freeing the native copy without copying it back, and mode 0 is reserved for arrays the native code wrote. The pure-Java packet ciphers and the streaming native modes are not affected. Bouncy Castle for Java (bcprov) is not affected, as it ships no native implementations.
Vulnerability data from NVD (NIST) · CISA KEV · EPSS