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CVE-2026-17507

high

In Bouncy Castle for Java before 1.86, the MLS implementation (org.bouncycastle.mls) holds RFC 9420's uint32 leaf_index in a signed int, so a wire value with t…

Vendor / product: Bouncycastle — bc-java

In Bouncy Castle for Java before 1.86, the MLS implementation (org.bouncycastle.mls) holds RFC 9420's uint32 leaf_index in a signed int, so a wire value with the top bit set decodes to a negative number. That is a legitimate encoding rather than malformed input, and it must still decode, since the MLS interop test vectors round-trip the full range. GroupKeySet.SecretTree.hasLeaf and Group.validateRemove compared the decoded value directly against the tree's leaf count, and a signed comparison treats any negative int as less than a positive bound, so an out-of-range sender passed the membership check. In the hasLeaf case the SenderData of an unprotected PrivateMessage could then drive LeafIndex.directPath through NodeIndex.parent() arithmetic that never reaches the tree root, growing the resulting node list without bound until the JVM exhausted its heap. A single small message from any current group member could therefore deny service to every other member of the group. Both comparisons now interpret the value as unsigned via Integer.toUnsignedLong, rejecting an out-of-range sender however it was encoded; well-formed leaf indices are unaffected.

CVSS
7.5
7.5 (CVSS v3.1)
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
Severity source: NVD CVSS v3.1 (nvd@nist.gov)
Timeline (UTC)
Published: 2026-10-02 08:17
Modified: 2026-10-14 18:59
NVD status: Analyzed
Last synced 2 days ago
Verified against the source API 2026-10-27 06:56 UTC
Exploitation
Not listed in CISA KEV (as of last catalog sync)
Absence from KEV does not mean a CVE is not exploited. Exploitation status: unknown (no authoritative evidence in our sources).

Affected products

bouncycastle / bc-java ≥1.73 <1.86

Weakness classification (CWE)

Source: NVD / CISA. “NVD-CWE-Other” and “NVD-CWE-noinfo” mean NVD could not assign a specific weakness.

Mitigation & advisories

Vendor advisory: https://github.com/bcgit/bc-java/wiki/CVE%E2%80%902026%E2%80%9017507
Patch / mitigation: https://github.com/bcgit/bc-java/commit/1eb83471eb01727bfdb944a5a46355cc77d55f44
Patch / mitigation: https://github.com/bcgit/bc-java/wiki/CVE%E2%80%902026%E2%80%9017507

References

Data sources

NVD CVE API 2.0 — fetched 2026-10-27 06:56 UTC · record ↗

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