Zeroisation of sensitive key material on garbage collection relies on finalization
Key facts
- Attack vector
- Network
- Privileges required
- None
- User interaction
- None
- Attack complexity
- Low
- Attack requirements
- None
- Impact type
- Denial of service
- Confidentiality · integrity · availability
- None · None · High
- Fix status
- Fixed
Attack profile from CVSS 4.0 · CNA. Fix status from CNA and GitHub. Impact type from CWE-772.
Summary
In Bouncy Castle for Java FIPS (BC-FJA) before bc-fips 1.0.2.7 (1.0.X series), 2.0.2 (2.0.X series) and 2.1.3 (2.1.X series), sensitive key material held by the AES and DESede engines, the SP 800-90A DRBGs, SymmetricSecretKey and the PBKD and scrypt parameter classes was zeroised on garbage collection by overriding Object.finalize. Finalization runs at an unspecified time and in an unspecified order and is serviced by a single finalizer thread, so where objects carrying a finalizer are allocated faster than that thread retires them the pending-finalization queue grows without bound: disposal falls arbitrarily far behind, which can contribute to an OutOfMemoryError under load, and the key material those objects hold stays resident in the heap for as long as they are queued, defeating the purpose of the zeroisation. The behaviour was not a problem on Java 8 or Java 11; it is later JVMs, on which finalization has been deprecated and progressively de-emphasised, where it becomes one. Disposal of these classes now runs from a java.lang.ref.Cleaner registered in the multi-release jdk1.9 overlay, so on Java 9 and later it no longer depends on the finalizer being scheduled. Bouncy Castle for Java (bcprov) and Bouncy Castle for Java LTS are not affected, as neither implements the finalizer-based zeroisation scheme.
Why it matters now
SSVC decision points
CISA ADP · SSVC 2.0.3
- Exploitation
- None
- Automatable
- Yes
- Technical impact
- Partial
The decision (Track, Attend, Act) also depends on your mission and well-being impact; see CISA's SSVC guide.
Affected products
| Vendor | Product | Affected versions | Fixed in | Status | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Legion of the Bouncy Castle Inc. | BC-FJA | 1.0.0 to before 1.0.2.7; 2.0.0 to before 2.0.2; 2.1.0 to before 2.1.3 | 1.0.2.7, 2.0.2, 2.1.3 | Patch available | CNA |
| — | org.bouncycastle:bc-fips (Maven) | before 1.0.2.7 | 1.0.2.7 | Patch available | GHSA-98j2-6v39-78w8 |
| — | org.bouncycastle:bc-fips (Maven) | 2.0.0 to before 2.0.2 | 2.0.2 | Patch available | GHSA-98j2-6v39-78w8 |
| — | org.bouncycastle:bc-fips (Maven) | 2.1.0 to before 2.1.3 | 2.1.3 | Patch available | GHSA-98j2-6v39-78w8 |
- BC-FJA VendorLegion of the Bouncy Castle Inc. Affected 1.0.0 to before 1.0.2.7; 2.0.0 to before 2.0.2; 2.1.0 to before 2.1.3 Fixed in 1.0.2.7, 2.0.2, 2.1.3 Patch available CNA
- org.bouncycastle:bc-fips (Maven) Vendor— Affected before 1.0.2.7 Fixed in 1.0.2.7 Patch available GHSA-98j2-6v39-78w8
- org.bouncycastle:bc-fips (Maven) Vendor— Affected 2.0.0 to before 2.0.2 Fixed in 2.0.2 Patch available GHSA-98j2-6v39-78w8
- org.bouncycastle:bc-fips (Maven) Vendor— Affected 2.1.0 to before 2.1.3 Fixed in 2.1.3 Patch available GHSA-98j2-6v39-78w8
Remediation
- Fix · CNA BC-FJA (Legion of the Bouncy Castle Inc.) Fixed in 1.0.2.7, 2.0.2, 2.1.3
- Fix · GHSA-98j2-6v39-78w8 org.bouncycastle:bc-fips (Maven) Fixed in 1.0.2.7 Advisory →
- Fix · GHSA-98j2-6v39-78w8 org.bouncycastle:bc-fips (Maven) Fixed in 2.0.2 Advisory →
- Fix · GHSA-98j2-6v39-78w8 org.bouncycastle:bc-fips (Maven) Fixed in 2.1.3 Advisory →
Vendor assessments
Red Hat
Red Hat rating: Important. Red Hat's page for this CVE →
Not affected: 1 product
- Red Hat JBoss Enterprise Application Platform Expansion Pack
Timeline
- 2026-10-02 Threatist record created from CVE-2026-13505
- 2026-10-03 Alias added: GHSA-98j2-6v39-78w8
References
More Legion of the Bouncy Castle Inc. vulnerabilities
- TI-2018-15967 Legion of the Bouncy Castle Legion of the Bouncy Castle Java Cryptography APIs 1.58 up to… CVSS 3.1CRITICAL 9.8
- TI-2017-09736 BouncyCastle JCE TLS Bleichenbacher/ROBOT CVSS 3.0HIGH 7.5
- TI-2026-42545 MTI/A0 DH agreement exponentiates unvalidated peer value CVSS 4.0CRITICAL 9.3
- TI-2026-42533 JSSE hostname verifier CN-fallback enabled by default despite documented opt-in CVSS 4.0CRITICAL 9.3
- TI-2026-41816 Stapled OCSP response accepted without binding to the checked certificate CVSS 4.0CRITICAL 9.3
- TI-2026-07701 Name Constraints bypass via trailing dot in rfc822Name and URI CVSS 4.0CRITICAL 9.3
Sources
- CVE-2026-13505 · CVE Program
- CVE-2026-13505 · NVD
- FIRST EPSS
- GHSA-98j2-6v39-78w8 · GitHub Advisory Database · CC BY 4.0
- CVE-2026-13505 · Red Hat security data · CC BY 4.0
This product uses the NVD API but is not endorsed or certified by the NVD. Sources and licences