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CVE-2026-71888

BC-JAVA: CMS AuthenticatedData exposes attacker-inserted authAttrs when digestAlgorithm is absent

Legion of the Bouncy Castle Inc. BC-JAVA
CVSS
8.7High
ExploitationNo known exploitationNot in CISA KEV, which does not prove it is unexploitedCISA KEV
Exploit odds (EPSS)0.11%Chance of exploitation activity in the next 30 days, higher than 1% of CVEs. Scored 23 Oct 2026FIRST EPSS
Fixed in1.86Also 2.73.13, 1.0.13 and 4 moreCVE List
Published3 Oct 2026Updated 5 Oct 2026CVE List

What fixes it

Show all 7 fixed versions

A fixed version on one release line is not the upgrade target for every line. Check your exact version and any vendor backports.

Description

In Bouncy Castle for Java before 1.86, the streaming CMS AuthenticatedData parser accepted a message whose digestAlgorithm and authAttrs fields disagreed about whether authenticated attributes were present. RFC 5652 sec. 9.1 pairs the two, requiring that authAttrs be present whenever digestAlgorithm is, and sec. 9.2 makes the MAC cover the DER encoding of authAttrs when they are present and the eContent OCTET STRING directly when they are not. CMSAuthenticatedDataParser has to choose between those two in its constructor, before it can reach authAttrs, which comes later in the SEQUENCE, so it chose on digestAlgorithm alone: for a message with digestAlgorithm absent but authAttrs present it verified the content MAC and then returned the attributes through getAuthAttrs() as though they had been authenticated, when the MAC had never covered them. An attacker able to modify a message in transit could insert an authenticated attribute, such as an RFC 2634 ESSSecurityLabel, into an otherwise valid message while holding neither the key-encryption key nor the content-MAC key, and an application taking an authorization, routing or labelling decision from those attributes would act on attacker-chosen values. The content itself remained MAC-bound. asn1.cms.AuthenticatedData now rejects the mismatched pairing when parsing and CMSAuthenticatedDataParser cross-checks the two fields once authAttrs is read. This is a variant of CVE-2026-59642, which bound the content to the MAC for messages that legitimately carry authAttrs, and which does not address this case. 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), and bcutil-fips 2.0.8 (2.0.X series) and 2.1.8 (2.1.X series).

Text from CVE List

Affected versions 8

  • BC-JAVAaffected: all versions before 1.86CVE List
  • BC-JAVAaffected: 1.70 before 1.86CVE List
  • BC-LTS-JAVAaffected: 2.73.0 before 2.73.13CVE List
  • BC-FJAaffected: 1.0.0 before 1.0.13CVE List
  • BC-FJAaffected: 2.0.0 before 2.0.13CVE List
  • BC-FJAaffected: 2.1.0 before 2.1.13CVE List
  • BC-FJAaffected: 2.0.0 before 2.0.8CVE List
  • BC-FJAaffected: 2.1.0 before 2.1.8CVE List

References 2