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CVE-2026-71885· CVE.org (no NVD analysis yet)· CNA bcorg

MLS X.509 credential not bound to the LeafNode signature key

Noroxi assessment

Priority: Monitor (action score 36/100)

  • The sources we track (CISA KEV, Exploit-DB, Metasploit, Nuclei, GitHub) show no public exploit code or exploitation in the wild.
  • Probability of exploitation in the next 30 days: 0.18% (FIRST EPSS).
  • Anyone who can reach it over the internet can trigger it. No account or password is required. No user action is required. No special conditions are required; it is repeatable.
  • Fixed version: Legion of the Bouncy Castle Inc. BC-JAVA 1.86.

Low priority for now. Upgrade to Legion of the Bouncy Castle Inc. BC-JAVA 1.86 or later.

Generated automatically from the record's data: CVSS (NVD and CNA), CISA KEV and SSVC, FIRST EPSS, exploit sources, fixed versions. How we calculate it

Primary sources: NVD · CVE.org · FIRST EPSS

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.

CriticalCVSS 9.2 · v4.0—No exploit Fix available
Published
Oct 3, 2026
Updated
Oct 6, 2026
EPSS
0.1% · 7th percentile

Report tools

JSON

Action score

36

Monitor

Low priority for now.

CVSS
36 / 40 · 9.2 / 10
CISA KEV
0 / 30 · Not listed
EPSS
0 / 30 · 0.1%

CISA SSVC decision

Exploitation
none
Automatable
no
Technical impact
total

Vulnrichment: CISA's decision-tree inputs.

CNA vs NVD score

NVD
—
CNA · bcorg
9.2
NVD has not scored this yet; the score shown is the CNA’s.

CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:P/PR:N/UI:N/VC:H/VI:H/VA:L/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N/U:Amber

The score given by the assigning authority versus NVD’s independent score. A gap means the severity is contested.

Get told when this record changes

  • Not in KEV: no record of exploitation in the wild
  • No public exploit code on record
  • A fix has been released

If any of these changes, we'll tell you in the daily email digest.

Follow CVE-2026-71885

When you'll hear from us

  • when it enters CISA KEV
  • when exploit code appears or is weaponized
  • when the record is updated (including a fixed version)
  • when EPSS rises 20 points in a week

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Noroxi analysis

What does it mean in your environment?

The assessment above is generated automatically from the record's data; it doesn't know your environment. Our team verifies on your systems whether this vulnerability is actually exploitable and which mitigation is enough.

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Affected systems

Is your version affected?

Pick the product and type the version you run. It's compared with this record's version ranges in your browser; the version isn't sent anywhere.

—

Versions reported by the vendor

Affected version ranges reported by the assigning authority (bcorg). Independent of NVD's CPE analysis and usually ahead of it.

  • Legion of the Bouncy Castle Inc. BC-JAVA

    • before 1.86affected · maven

Package-level exposure

OSV and GitHub Advisory data: ecosystem, package and range. SBOM matching uses this table.

EcosystemPackageAffected rangeFix
Debian:12bouncycastlefrom 0—
Debian:14bouncycastlebefore 1.86-11.86-1
openSUSE:Tumbleweedbouncycastlebefore 1.86-1.11.86-1.1

Same product

legion of the bouncy castle inc.: all records

Other highest-scoring records for the same primary product.

  • CVE-2025-14813GOSTCTR implementation unable to process more than 255 blocks correctly
    37Monitor
  • CVE-2026-5598Non-constant time comparisons risk private key leakage in FrodoKEM.
    35Monitor
  • CVE-2026-71890MLS external commit can remove an arbitrary group member
    34Monitor

Published before and after this one in the same product

  • ← EarlierCVE-2026-18036Oct 2, 2026 · NTRU leaks private key information by reducing secret values with a non-constant-time integer division
    32Monitor
  • ← EarlierCVE-2026-18040Oct 3, 2026 · HQC leaks private key information through secret-indexed GF(2^8) tables and a secret-dependent fixed-weight sampler
    23Monitor
  • Later →CVE-2026-71886Oct 3, 2026 · OpenPGP certification accepted from a subkey without certification authority
    32Monitor

Remediation

Which version to upgrade to

Fix versions compiled from the vendor, package registries and Microsoft. Verify the vendor's note before upgrading.

Product / packageFixed versionSource
Legion of the Bouncy Castle Inc. BC-JAVA1.86Vendor (CNA)
debian:bouncycastle1.86-1 · Debian:14Package registry (OSV)
opensuse:bouncycastle1.86-1.1 · openSUSE:TumbleweedPackage registry (OSV)

Exploit status

No known public exploit

No public exploit has been observed yet. That doesn't mean you're safe, only that the bar is a little higher.

Research context

For pentesters and researchers: attack profile, score disagreement, timeline, patch commits, credits, variant and chain candidates, bug bounty scope. All derived from existing data; no exploit code.

Timeline

From publication to today: proof of concept, Metasploit module, CISA KEV and fix record. Dates are as reported by the sources.

  1. Published
  2. Fix recordedsame day
  3. TodayOct 21, 2026+18 d
EPSS, last 120 days

FIRST EPSS daily score; only changes of 0.01 or more are recorded (step chart).

Patch and commit links

Commit, PR and diff links among the references. A starting point for patch-diffing and variant hunting; fixes, not exploits.

Credits

All researchers

Finders, reporters and analysts named in the CNA record. Click a name for that researcher’s other records.

Variant candidates

Same product, same weakness class, within 18 months. If the patch missed the root cause, the sibling bug is here.

No nightly-computed relations.

Chain candidates

An authentication bypass and a privilege-requiring bug in the same product, published close together: combined they may become an unauthenticated path.

—

Bug bounty scope

No known public program.

Source: bounty-targets-data (public HackerOne, Bugcrowd, Intigriti, YesWeHack listings).

Technical details

Attack conditions

  • Anyone who can reach it over the internet can trigger it.
  • No account or password is required.
  • No user action is required.
  • No special conditions are required; it is repeatable.

If successful

Confidentiality
Integrity
Availability
Attack vector
Network
Attack complexity
Low
Privileges required
None
User interaction
None
Scope
X

Weakness class (CWE)

CWE-287 · Improper Authentication

CVSS vector

CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:P/PR:N/UI:N/VC:H/VI:H/VA:L/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N/E:X/CR:X/IR:X/AR:X/MAV:X/MAC:X/MAT:X/MPR:X/MUI:X/MVC:X/MVI:X/MVA:X/MSC:X/MSI:X/MSA:X/S:X/AU:X/R:X/V:X/RE:X/U:Amber

nvd-secondary

Root cause

Authentication is added route by route instead of being enforced in one place. When a route added later bypasses the shared middleware, the session check never runs for it.

The bug in code

The whole CWE-287 class

A representative example of this vulnerability class. Not the vendor's source code; it shows the faulty pattern and its fix.

Vulnerable

ts
app.use("/admin", requireSession, adminRouter);
// Route added later skips the middlewareapp.post("/admin-api/config", updateConfig);

Fixed

ts
const admin = express.Router();admin.use(requireSession, requireRole("admin"));
admin.post("/config", updateConfig);app.use("/admin", admin);

Attack context

MITRE CAPEC attack patterns and ATT&CK techniques for this weakness class (CWE). A starting point for detection rules and threat hunting.

Change log

  1. SSVC exploitation— → none
  2. Exploit maturity— → none
  3. Fix✗ → ✓

For records you follow, these changes also arrive as notifications. →

References

Show all references (1 more)

Vendor advisories and official records. Exploit/PoC links are deliberately left out.

All records