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CVE-2026-71885: Product identification pending

Severity

9.2 (CRITICAL)

Vendor

BOUNCY CASTLE FOR JAVA

Affected versions

Before 1.86

Fixed version

1.86

Patch status

Patched

Published

2026-10-03T09:17:04.730

Modified

2026-10-03T09:17:04.730

Why it matters

This matters because the affected product may be exploitable without valid credentials. Internet-facing deployments should be reviewed first.

Recommended admin actions

• Prioritize validation immediately due to critical CVSS severity.
• Compare installed versions against the affected version range in the advisory.
• Treat internet-facing systems as higher priority.

Technical summary

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. A party could therefore 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. In a deployment that admits external commits without an independent credential-admission check, an unauthenticated attacker could be admitted under a victim's X.509 identity, evict the victim (resynchronization compares whole credentials rather than signing keys), derive the current epoch, decrypt subsequent group messages, and send messages accepted as the victim. TreeKEM.LeafNode now requires the end-entity certificate's subject public key, in the cipher suite's signature encoding, to equal signature_key for an X.509 credential and rejects the leaf otherwise, including an empty chain or a certificate whose key type does not match the cipher suite; certificate-chain and identity validation to a trust anchor remain the application's responsibility per RFC 9420 sec. 5.3.1. Deployments using only basic credentials are unaffected.

View the official NVD record for CVE-2026-71885

CVE data is sourced from NVD/CNA records and optional enrichment. Validate against the vendor advisory before taking production action.