CVE-2026-97873

Legacy PBES1 and PKCS#12 PBE iteration count honoured unbounded in the raw JCA provider

Published Oct 3, 2026 CVSS 4.0 · 5.3 Medium EPSS < 1% KEV · Not listed
Description
In Bouncy Castle for Java before 1.86, the raw JCA provider's legacy PBES1 (PKCS#5 scheme 1) and PKCS#12 PBE families ran their password-based key derivation with an iteration count taken from untrusted input without bounding it, so a small input could dictate an arbitrary amount of work before anything could be verified. The AlgorithmParameters implementations (PKCS12PBE and its object identifier aliases, and PBKDF1) accepted any count from an encoded PKCS12PBEParams or PBEParameter, narrowing a value beyond the int range with intValue(), and every Cipher, Mac and SecretKeyFactory in these families derived with whatever count it was given, including one decoded by another provider's AlgorithmParameters, as when javax.crypto.EncryptedPrivateKeyInfo.getKeySpec() decrypts a PKCS#12 PBE-protected private key with BC. Both the parameter parse and the derivations now reject a negative or over-limit count under the org.bouncycastle.pbe.max_iteration_count property (default 10,000,000) that already bounded PBKDF2 (CVE-2026-17508), and the parse rejects a count beyond the int range rather than narrowing it. This issue also affects Bouncy Castle for Java LTS before 2.73.13.

Remediation

No solution or workaround provided in the CVE record

Tracking

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Advisories

No advisories available
History
Type Values Removed Values Added
Weaknesses CWE-606
References
Metrics threat_severity

None

cvssV3_1

{'score': 5.3, 'vector': 'CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L'}

threat_severity

Moderate

Type Values Removed Values Added
Metrics ssvc

{'options': {'Automatable': 'yes', 'Exploitation': 'none', 'Technical Impact': 'partial'}, 'version': '2.0.3'}

Type Values Removed Values Added
First Time appeared Legion Of The Bouncy Castle Inc.
Legion Of The Bouncy Castle Inc. bc-java
Legion Of The Bouncy Castle Inc. bc-lts-java
Vendors & Products Legion Of The Bouncy Castle Inc.
Legion Of The Bouncy Castle Inc. bc-java
Legion Of The Bouncy Castle Inc. bc-lts-java
Type Values Removed Values Added
Description In Bouncy Castle for Java before 1.86, the raw JCA provider's legacy PBES1 (PKCS#5 scheme 1) and PKCS#12 PBE families ran their password-based key derivation with an iteration count taken from untrusted input without bounding it, so a small input could dictate an arbitrary amount of work before anything could be verified. The AlgorithmParameters implementations (PKCS12PBE and its object identifier aliases, and PBKDF1) accepted any count from an encoded PKCS12PBEParams or PBEParameter, narrowing a value beyond the int range with intValue(), and every Cipher, Mac and SecretKeyFactory in these families derived with whatever count it was given, including one decoded by another provider's AlgorithmParameters, as when javax.crypto.EncryptedPrivateKeyInfo.getKeySpec() decrypts a PKCS#12 PBE-protected private key with BC. Both the parameter parse and the derivations now reject a negative or over-limit count under the org.bouncycastle.pbe.max_iteration_count property (default 10,000,000) that already bounded PBKDF2 (CVE-2026-17508), and the parse rejects a count beyond the int range rather than narrowing it. This issue also affects Bouncy Castle for Java LTS before 2.73.13.
Title Legacy PBES1 and PKCS#12 PBE iteration count honoured unbounded in the raw JCA provider
Weaknesses CWE-770
References
Metrics cvssV4_0

{'score': 5.3, 'vector': 'CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:P/VC:N/VI:N/VA:L/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N/U:Amber'}

Weaknesses

Sources

Status
PUBLISHED
Assigner
bcorg
Published
Updated
Oct 5, 2026, 5:00 PM
Reserved
Sep 25, 2026, 8:41 AM
Status
Awaiting Analysis
Published
Oct 3, 2026, 9:17 AM
Modified
Oct 6, 2026, 2:49 PM
Severity
Moderate
Public date
Oct 3, 2026, 8:04 AM