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OpenAdvisories
High · 8.2 CVE-2026-71886 EUVD-2026-92002GHSA-7hrr-mw36-px4x

OpenPGP certification accepted from a subkey without certification authority

Published Oct 3, 2026 · Updated Oct 5, 2026 · Assigned by bcorg

Description

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.

Affected products

VendorProductAffectedFixed
Legion of the Bouncy Castle BC-JAVA 1.81 – < 1.86 1.86

Fixed in Linux distributions

Distributions backport fixes, so the version that fixes this vulnerability differs per release — upgrade to at least the version shown. From the distributions' security trackers and advisories.

ReleasePackageFixed inAdvisory
Debian 14 bouncycastle 1.86-1 —
Debian 13 bouncycastle No fix yet —
Debian 12 bouncycastle No fix yet —
ReleasePackageFixed inAdvisory
Ubuntu 26.10 bouncycastle No fix yet —
Ubuntu 26.04 LTS bouncycastle No fix yet —
Show 5 more (older releases, extended support, other products)
ReleasePackageFixed inAdvisory
Ubuntu Pro 24.04 LTS bouncycastle No fix yet —
Ubuntu Pro 22.04 LTS bouncycastle No fix yet —
Ubuntu Pro 20.04 LTS bouncycastle No fix yet —
Ubuntu Pro 18.04 LTS bouncycastle No fix yet —
Ubuntu Pro 16.04 LTS bouncycastle No fix yet —
ReleasePackageFixed inAdvisory
SLES 15 SP7 bouncycastle 1.86-150200.3.41.1 SUSE-SU-2026:4797-1
SLES 15 SP6 bouncycastle 1.86-150200.3.41.1 SUSE-SU-2026:4797-1
SLES 15 SP5 bouncycastle 1.86-150200.3.41.1 SUSE-SU-2026:4797-1
SLES 15 SP4 bouncycastle 1.86-150200.3.41.1 SUSE-SU-2026:4797-1
Show 7 more (older releases, extended support, other products)
ReleasePackageFixed inAdvisory
SLES for SAP 16.0 bouncycastle 1.86-160000.1.1 SUSE-SU-2026:24461-1
SLES for SAP 15 SP6 bouncycastle 1.86-150200.3.41.1 SUSE-SU-2026:4797-1
SLES for SAP 15 SP5 bouncycastle 1.86-150200.3.41.1 SUSE-SU-2026:4797-1
SLES for SAP 15 SP4 bouncycastle 1.86-150200.3.41.1 SUSE-SU-2026:4797-1
SLES 16.0 bouncycastle 1.86-160000.1.1 SUSE-SU-2026:24461-1
SLE HPC 15 SP5 bouncycastle 1.86-150200.3.41.1 SUSE-SU-2026:4797-1
SLE HPC 15 SP4 bouncycastle 1.86-150200.3.41.1 SUSE-SU-2026:4797-1
ReleasePackageFixed inAdvisory
openSUSE Tumbleweed bouncycastle 1.86-1.1 openSUSE-SU-2026:12090-1
openSUSE Leap 16.0 bouncycastle 1.86-160000.1.1 openSUSE-SU-2026:22169-1

Wolfi

ReleasePackageFixed inAdvisory
Wolfi rolling gradle-8 8.14.6-r5 —
Wolfi rolling gradle-9 9.8.2-r3 —

Advisories 5

References