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CVE-2026-71886: Product identification pending

Severity

8.2 (HIGH)

Vendor

BOUNCY CASTLE FOR JAVA

Affected versions

Before 1.86

Fixed version

1.86

Patch status

Patched

Published

2026-10-03T09:17:04.897

Modified

2026-10-03T09:17:04.897

Why it matters

High-severity vulnerability requiring prioritized review.

Recommended admin actions

• Review and patch based on exposure, asset criticality, and business impact.
• Compare installed versions against the affected version range in the advisory.

Technical summary

In Bouncy Castle for Java before 1.86, the high-level OpenPGP certificate API accepted a third-party certification or trust delegation from any component key of the issuing certificate, without requiring that component to have been granted the authority to certify. OpenPGPCertificate.getCertificationBy() and getDelegationBy() resolve a third-party signature by matching its issuer key identifier against every key of the third-party certificate, then verify the issuing component's binding chain and the signature itself; nothing checked that the issuing component carried the RFC 9580 sec. 5.2.3.29 certification key flag (CERTIFY_OTHER) when the signature was created. A subkey bound only with SIGN_DATA – the online signing subkey of exactly the offline-primary arrangement those key flags exist to express – could therefore issue a positive User ID certification over an attacker-controlled identity, or a full-trust depth-one direct-key delegation of introducer trust, and the API returned it as a valid signature chain attributed to the third-party certificate. An application treating getCertificationBy(…).isValid() or getDelegationBy(…) as an identity or trusted-introducer decision would attribute the attacker's assertion to the offline primary key. The same held for a legacy RSA subkey bound only for encryption, whose algorithm is nonetheless able to sign. This does not forge the primary key's signature or recover any private key; it promotes an already-compromised restricted subkey to the primary key's identity-issuing authority, defeating the containment the key-flag separation provides. A third-party certification or delegation is now attributed to the issuing certificate only when the component key that made it is the primary key, or is a subkey holding CERTIFY_OTHER when the signature was created, so certification-capable subkeys continue to be accepted; primary keys are accepted whatever their key flags say, since a primary key is certification-capable by construction and certificates carrying no key flags subpacket at all are common. Third-party revocations are deliberately outside the rule, since declining to honour one would keep trust alive rather than withdraw it.

View the official NVD record for CVE-2026-71886

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